My Soul to Keep (20 page)

“I just banged it up. It’s sore. I’ll put some ice on it, and I’ll be okay,” David said, finding his voice a bit more.

“We heard him yelling all the way across the street. We knew something horrible happened,” Mrs. DeNight said to Jessica.

“I just lost my balance and fell off the ladder. That’s all. Just wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow, it’ll be okay.” David was mumbling, sounding nearly incoherent. “Tomorrow morning.”

“Want me to help you inside?” Mr. DeNight asked David, extending his arm. “That is, if you won’t sue me …”

“He didn’t mean that, Mr. DeNight. Excuse him.”

Jessica was thankful that David didn’t seem to have trouble walking, but she wasn’t very reassured. He was obviously in a lot of pain, and his shoulder looked absolutely deformed, as though he had a hump in his back. The bleeding from his mouth also worried her. The thin trail of blood had reached his chin.

As soon as David was inside, he collapsed against the couch and promptly moaned, his eyes closed. He’d scraped his left cheekbone in the fall, leaving it raw. God only knew what else could be wrong with him.

“That shoulder’s dislocated, David,” Mr. DeNight was saying as Jessica leaned over her husband to unbutton his shirt. “Look there. See? You need someone to fix that up for you.”

“Mommy, Daddy’s bleeding,” Kira said, still crying, as she climbed beside David and grasped his hand.

“I’ll find a cloth and some cold water to clean up his face,” Mrs. DeNight said, ducking back toward the kitchen.

Jessica’s hands were trembling, she realized. Once David’s shoulder was bare, there was no mistaking how badly he’d twisted it; the shoulder was pushed back so far, it had nearly vanished. Maybe his arm was broken too.

“I’m calling 911,” Jessica announced firmly.

David gave her a wild-eyed, foreign look that made her shrink away from him. “I already told you—no fucking doctors!” he shouted, nearly screaming the words.
“I said no fucking doctors.”

There was silence in the house except for a glass tumbling into the aluminum kitchen sink. Mr. DeNight was frozen, his arms folded across his chest. Kira’s sobs had stopped as she gazed up at David, fearful. Jessica herself could not move, she was so shocked at the venom in David’s voice. She couldn’t remember his ever shouting at her this way. Not ever.

“Maybe we’d better leave,” Mr. DeNight said cheerfully, as though nothing had happened. “Lottie? Let’s go on home.”

Jessica’s bottom lip shook. She was close to tears, but she fought them back. “Thank you for everything,” she said, anxious to help guide her neighbors out to the porch. “I’m so sorry about … I mean, I don’t know what … David’s never …”

Mr. DeNight squeezed her arm reassuringly. “Give him some time. He may have a concussion, or even be in shock. He’ll come to his senses soon, after the pain gets to him. Take care he doesn’t try to sue you, though. I still get a kick out of that.”

“And he sure meant it,” Mrs. DeNight piped up.

“He’ll be all right. Could be just a tad embarrassed too,” Mr. DeNight said privately to Jessica as he waved goodbye.

When Jessica returned to the sofa, David was resting his head against the cushion, his eyes closed. She immediately felt tense, but she noticed that his breaths were falling evenly up and down.

“David?” she said.

“Shhhhhh,” Kira said, raising her finger to her lips. “Daddy said he’s going to rest now.”

“David, did you hit your head? I don’t think you’re supposed to try to sleep after a head injury.”

“I’m fine,” David said, not sounding any kinder. He didn’t open his eyes to look at her. “Put Kira to bed. Can you handle that? She doesn’t need to be up now.”

Don’t talk to me like that, you damned sonofabitch, Jessica thought in a rage, but she kept her mouth firmly closed. That’s his pain talking, she told herself. And if he wanted to be so stubborn, she decided, then let him sit there and suffer.

“Come on, Kira,” she said instead, taking her daughter’s hand.

Her own hand was still unsteady. David’s outburst reminded Jessica of why she’d never felt fully at ease with Princess in the house. The giant dog had been playful and adored them all, but Jessica could never forget that she was an animal. One day, without thinking, Jessica tried to snatch a chicken bone from Princess’s mouth so she wouldn’t choke on it; the dog snapped, her sharp teeth clicking only an inch from Jessica’s fingers. Those gnashing teeth hadn’t been intended as a warning. Princess wanted to bite her, and hard. Jessica felt alienated from her, like a stranger. Just now, David had made her feel the same way. The trauma of his fall had uncovered someone she had never met.

While Jessica bathed Kira upstairs, she heard David flick on the television set and turn up the volume to
Casablanca.
Then she heard the faucet go on in the kitchen. He must be all right if he’s walking around, she thought. Still, after Kira was tucked in, it might not hurt to call Alexis from the bedroom phone.

Hurriedly, Kira recited her nightly prayer before climbing beneath her sheets. “Now I lay me down to sleep … I pray the Lord my soul to keep … If I should die before I wake … I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Bea had taught Kira that prayer, the way she’d taught Jessica as a girl, but Jessica never liked it. What a scary idea to send into a child’s head at bedtime, she thought. “And please bless Mommy and make Daddy okay again. Amen.”

“Honey, did Daddy fall off the ladder or out of the tree?” Jessica asked Kira, pulling her bedsheet up to her chin.

“The tree. Night Song pushed him, Mommy. Just like I said.”

How high was that? Twenty feet, maybe? More? Sweet Jesus, he might have been killed. It was a miracle he was even conscious. Jessica smoothed Kira’s sheets across her belly. “Night Song didn’t push him,” she said.

“Yes she did, ‘cause she’s a ghost.”

It probably hadn’t been a good idea to pass on to Kira the folklore about their neighborhood’s long-dead Tequesta haunts. Kira sometimes had nightmares and came scrambling into their room at night, though it was happening less often as she got older.

“Yes, but Night Song is a good ghost. A good ghost wouldn’t do anything to hurt anyone. We don’t have to be afraid of Night Song. She can’t hurt us.”

Kira lowered her voice to a whisper. “Mommy, are there good monsters too?” she asked.

Jessica stared hard at Kira’s face, her heart stilled. The question stunned her. Then, Jessica remembered her own cadre of monsters who used to terrorize her from under her bed when she was younger. Apparently, they’d found her daughter too.

She kissed Kira’s forehead. “There’s no such thing as monsters, Kira. Monsters aren’t real.”

“Oh, yes they are,” Kira said with deep certainty, then she inexplicably grinned her widest grin and swept her shining eyes away from Jessica. “Hi, Daddy!” Kira cried, sitting up in bed.

David was standing in the doorway, smiling back.

Finally, the fog of agony that had overrun Dawit’s mind had lifted, releasing his rational self. How he loathed pain! His tolerance for discomfort was nearly nonexistent, and he’d been so long without pain he’d almost forgotten its treachery.

But it was the Searcher, not his fall, that had thrown his senses into disarray. Dawit had been certain the Searchers were here all along, but without confirmation he’d allowed himself to hope he might be wrong. Whichever of his brethren had been sent to discover his whereabouts must have been bold enough to wish to be seen, Dawit knew. Searchers valued stealth above all else. They would never be so careless as to be spotted accidentally.

What did it mean? Had the dreaded time come so soon?

Dawit hissed slightly as he reached over to turn off the beating water of the shower, where he’d stood for long minutes as though the water could wash away his hurting. The water from the showerhead was by now only lukewarm. Dawit’s body was stiff, and his shoulder still throbbed at intervals that were sometimes better, then horribly worse. And what of his ribs … ?

Dawit rubbed away the steam clouding the full-length mirror behind the bathroom door so he could examine his naked flesh. Ah. Just as he’d feared, the bruise on his rib cage where he’d broken at least two ribs was deep brown already, very visible. The bruise would not go away for many hours. He would have to hide his ribs from Jessica.

His face had not fared much better, especially his swollen tongue he’d nearly severed when he bit down on it upon impact. It was hard for him to speak, and painful. He’d also scraped some skin from his face along his jawbone. He would have to fix it.

After drying his face with a towel, dabbing at the tender spot one-handed, Dawit found cotton gauze in the bathroom first-aid kit and secured it to his face with white surgical tape. The bandage was unsightly, but at least it would hide the damage to his face.

There was nothing he could do to improve his shoulder. He considered an attempt to snap it back into place, but the thought of new pain dissuaded him, especially since his ribs were already stabbing his insides. Better to let it heal itself.

“David? Are you okay in there?” Jessica called, knocking on the closed door.

“I’ll be right out, baby,” he called back.

He wrapped himself in his white terry cloth robe and took one last look. He’d cleaned his blood away and covered his bruises with clothing or bandages, so there was no more to be done. This night would be his test. He must make it through this one night.

In the bedroom, Jessica had lighted candles on either side of the bed and put on a tape of music from India that she’d bought from a yoga center years before when Dawit was helping her experiment with basic meditation. He recognized the instruments right away, the flute and tambura. He had played the mystical- sounding stringed tambura for a time with his brethren in the House of Music. Sometimes, he missed those days. He missed Mahmoud and Khaldun most of all.

Jessica had selected the right music to calm him. Dawit shuddered with regret, thinking of her. Surely, he had scared her. What must she think of him?

Jessica patted the space on the bed beside her. “Come,” she said. “I want to talk.”

He leaned over to kiss her cheek, lingering despite the pain. “I have only two words: I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am.”

“I know,” she said. When he sat, she slid beside him and slowly slipped her arm around his waist. He wanted to scream when she brushed his rib cage slightly, but he repressed the urge. She rested her chin on his good shoulder. “David … we have to go to a doctor. You know that, right?”

Dawit sighed. “Yes,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to wait that long. I’ll have Mom come over right now to sit, and we can drive to North Shore Hospital.”

“Darling …” David said, wishing he could rest his aching tongue. “I know you don’t believe me, but I’m fine. Even the shoulder isn’t as bad as it looks. I know what I’m talking about. It’s happened before. Let’s give it until morning. If you’re still worried in the morning, I’ll go. I promise.”

For a long time, Jessica didn’t speak. He knew she was not happy, but she seemed to realize this was the biggest compromise she had ever won from him. “I called the DeNights to apologize,” Dawit went on, to prove he’d recovered his mind. “I freaked, as you would say. The fall scared me, more than anything. But it’s okay. It really is.”

Jessica kissed his good shoulder, nudging her lips past his robe to his skin. “Okay,” she said. “You know this is all just because I love you, don’t you? Because if you let anything bad happen from being stubborn and stupid, I’m going to kill you. You know that, right?”

“Yes,” he said. Now, it was he who felt tears, both from the wretched pain and from his depths of love for this woman, this mortal woman—a woman he must soon leave or convince to join him in Life forever. And how could he do either?

The hypnotizing sound of the tambura and its gentle Eastern strings reminded him of the incongruity of their worlds.

“I’ll never leave you, Jessica,” he said, not realizing until later, as he tried to sleep despite the diminishing shocks of pain, that he had come to his decision at last.

“David, wake up, honey. Look who stopped by.”

Confused, Dawit blinked into the daylight from his canopied sleep sanctuary. For a moment, unreasonably, he expected to see Christina’s face above him. Or Adele’s. But neither of those women called him David, of course. David was Jessica’s name only.

And so she was here, dressed for work in an orange silk blouse and houndstooth skirt, smiling down at him nervously. Dawit shifted in the bed and felt a dull, distant throbbing behind his shoulder blade—a residue of pain rather than the pain itself. His body had done its work, leaving him depleted of energy. Once while traveling through Ethiopia, after losing his right hand in swordplay with a nobleman in Gonder whose wife he’d conquested with his charms, Dawit fell unconscious and found a fully formed hand in its place by morning; but the new limb nonetheless ached for a full two days. Regeneration was a strain on his system, and that hardship had not improved with time. Dawit felt groggy and disconnected, lost in the patchwork of his own ancient histories.

“Babe?” Jessica asked, sounding worried this time because he didn’t respond. Dawit scowled at her, half sitting up in the bed. “I said there’s someone here to see you.”

Alexis, Jessica’s sister, stood in the doorway in a white lab coat. She too was apparently on her way to work and had no doubt stopped by at Jessica’s urging. Dawit tightened his fingers around the silk bedsheet, rigid with anger.

“What’s up, David?” Alexis said cheerfully.

Dawit nodded. “’Morning,” he mumbled.

“Hear through the grapevine you took a fall out of a tree. My price is right, so Jessica wanted me to come check you out.”

Jessica looked at Alexis, grateful, and then back at Dawit, with pleading, apologetic eyes. She bit her bottom lip, waiting for Dawit to respond. Of all wretched luck, marrying a woman with a physician in her family! He had never met anyone who hounded him about doctors’ care as much as Jessica. Americans had grown far more pampered in recent decades. Perhaps the Searchers were right in what they had told him the night they came to bid him to leave his family in Chicago; perhaps it was no longer possible, in modern times, to blend with mortals.

But Dawit decided to acquiesce. After his mean-spirited temperament the night before, Jessica had earned his cooperation. “Well, I know a deal when I hear one,” he said, mustering a smile. “It’s not every day you can find a doctor willing to make house calls. I have only one rule, Sis: no needles.”

“Deal,” Alexis said.

Once Dawit’s robe was off and his torso bare, Alexis examined him in the bright morning sunlight from the bedroom window. She ran her fingers across his back, his shoulders, his ribs. Her fingers tickled, sometimes finding a vague soreness, but Dawit sat without moving, his eyes occupied with watching his toes wriggling absently inches above the floor. Jessica stood beside them, her hands folded across her chest as she watched.

“Which shoulder is it?” Alexis asked at last.

“The left shoulder,” Jessica said.

Alexis probed with her palm. Dawit winced, more for display than out of discomfort. “Let’s look at your abrasion,” Alexis said unexpectedly, and before Dawit could protest she zipped his bandage away from his cheekbone. Jessica leaned closer, and Dawit sat beneath the two women’s eyes. From their faces, and from past experience, he knew that they could not see evidence of the raw skin from the night before.

“It was just a scratch,” Dawit said.

Alexis chuckled. “I don’t see no damn scratch.”

Dawit looked at Jessica and tried to make her smile with a wink, but her face remained taciturn. She was silent, crossing and uncrossing her arms. Dawit wondered what dangerous thoughts were unsettling her. “Jess, I told you I’d be fine,” he said, squeezing her hand.

Jessica accepted his hand, but he noticed she didn’t squeeze back. In the past, Jessica had always been very good about ignoring his vanishing scratches and scars. For the sake of them both, he hoped that was not changing. This was the worst possible time for a change.

Or was it? Perhaps this was the best time, after all, an avenue for all of the unlikely possibilities ahead to come to fruition. Even the subconscious thought of disclosure, brushing the edge of his mind, made Dawit’s spirits soar.

“Do you hurt anywhere?” Alexis asked him.

“My ribs are sore, but just a little. They’re not broken or anything … See?” he said, poking his rib cage to make his point.

“David, your shoulder was completely out of whack,” Jessica said. “Mr. DeNight said it was dislocated.”

Slowly, Dawit raised his arm and wound it in an exaggerated propeller motion. “No dislocated shoulder here,” he said.

“You got that right,” Alexis said. “You’re damn lucky, David. That tree out there is no joke.”

“Of course I’m lucky. I married your sister, and I get free exams to boot. I’d call that damned lucky.”

Alexis laughed, but Jessica’s gaze was hard and analytical, with set eyes that had finally seen too much.

Jessica convinced David to fix Kira’s breakfast and dress her for school so she could follow her sister outside to her white Beamer to steal a moment with her. Not that she had the first idea what she planned to say. She just wanted to tell her sister she had goose- bumps, even despite the morning heat.

“Look at you, Jessica, all worried for nothing. I’m glad it wasn’t serious,” Alex said.

“Yes, Lord,” Jessica said, swallowing hard, standing over her sister’s open driver’s side door. She knew Alexis was late to the hematology lab already, but she stood planted there.

“You okay?”

Jessica shook her head. “No. I have to ask you something.”

Alex dropped her arms to her sides, gazing at her expectantly. “What?”

Jessica sighed. What was the best way to tackle this so she wouldn’t sound like an idiot? Alexis had legitimate business at her lab and didn’t have time for foolishness. Besides, Alex wouldn’t have any qualms about laughing right in her face.

Jessica began, staring at the ground. “Uhm … Is there any medical condition that would explain a hyperactive immune system? Or accelerate somebody’s recovery rate?”

“Some people have very strong natural defenses, if that’s what you mean,” Alex said. “I assume you’re talking about David?”

Instinctively, Jessica glanced at the house to see if they were being watched or overheard. No one was standing at any of the windows, and she’d been careful to close the whitewashed wooden front door before pulling the screen shut.

“Alex, this whole thing is weird. I saw him last night. He had much more than a scratch on his face. He scraped a bunch of the skin off. It was bleeding. And his shoulder was so jammed out of place, he looked deformed. Look up there,” she said, pointing up at the orchid tree, where the shears David had left were still nestled high in the branches. “He fell from there. He banged the hell out of himself. Last night, I was scared to death he’d broken half of the bones in his body. This morning, he’s fine.”

Repeating aloud what her brain had been telling her all morning, Jessica felt a tingling sensation on her arms and at the nape of her neck. The words sounded ridiculous, but they were true. All true. She realized her heart was pounding, making her feel weak. She wondered if the uneasiness in her belly was because she hadn’t yet eaten breakfast, or if it was from confronting the impossible.

Alex gazed at her a moment, then her eyes wandered to her dashboard. “It’s not that weird to me. David’s fall scared the devil out of you last night. Maybe it just seemed worse.”

Jessica leaned so close to her sister that their faces nearly touched. “I know blood when I see it. I know a bruise when I see it. How can he be bleeding one night, and then there’s not a trace this morning? And he
knew.
Even with his shoulder, he kept saying ‘Wait until morning, wait until morning,’ like he knew the whole time that he’d be all better. What about his shoulder? How did it get fixed?”

“People can pop their dislocated shoulders back in. Although, if he did, he should really see a doctor because there’s probably ligament damage. I’m surprised he’s not sore …”

“Sore? Why should he be sore? He doesn’t have a mark anywhere on his body. What about that bandage on his face? Alex, there was nothing there. Absolutely nothing.”

“So you should be happy, right?” Alex asked.

“Yes, I’m happy. I’m ecstatic. I just want to understand it, that’s all. I want to know how he can do that. I want you to explain it. I’m a journalist. We need to know these things.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. Granted, maybe another specialist would know something more, but I don’t think so. Unless your immune system is suppressed or impaired, recovery pretty much takes place at the same pace. We cut ourselves, our blood clots, we form scars.”

“And the scars last,” Jessica said.

“Yes,” Alex said. “Not long, usually. But they last.”

Jessica lowered her voice to a hush. She was revealing things she’d never allowed herself to think about, much less shared with another person. Teacake had scratched the bridge of David’s nose as a scared stray kitten, drawing blood. During a hike on a trail in El Yunque in Puerto Rico before Kira was born, David tripped in his boots and scraped his elbow against a jutting tree stump. And he’d had a burn mark on his arm just a few weeks before. All of the marks were gone before she realized it. Why hadn’t she ever wondered about it before?

“His scars don’t last,” she said aloud, in wonderment. “They never do. Right now, I’m trying to remember even one time he’s had a scar longer than a day. I’m telling you, they don’t last.”

Alex’s eyes darted upward, and Jessica followed her gaze. David was staring down at them from the open second-story bedroom window, Kira’s room. He waved.

Jessica waved back, smiling, but her voice was free of mirth as she spoke to her sister in the same guarded tone. “I don’t get it. He’s my husband, I love him to death, but I have to be honest. It’s freaking me out.”

“So get him to a doctor. Have some blood tests done,” Alex said. “Hell, I’ll do it myself. About time he saw somebody.”

Jessica shook her head. “Won’t happen,” she said ruefully. “You know better.”

“Ain’t you learned how to handle that man yet?” Alex asked playfully. “Listen, tell him you won’t give up any you-know-what if he won’t take his tail to a doctor.”

“You’re so vulgar. You should be ashamed,” Jessica said, slapping her sister’s shoulder. “I’m serious, Alex.”

“Shoot. Me, too.”

Jessica’s didn’t answer; her eyes were fixed on David’s form as he stood in the window watching them. Alex got into her car and turned the key in the ignition.

“Look, I’m late. Don’t worry about Superman up there. Some people are blessed, that’s all. And science ain’t got nothing to do with it,” Alex said. “Wish I had a dose of whatever he’s got.”

“Amen to that,” Jessica said.