On Broken Wings (16 page)

Helen gasped and blushed brightly. Schliemann clasped his hands over his middle and bent all his powers upon the challenge of not releasing a gale of laughter.

Christine looked puzzled. "Did I say something wrong again?"

Helen bit her lip and looked the other way. Schliemann had never seen anyone turn that particular shade of crimson. He fought down his urge to guffaw and said, "Not exactly, child, but most people don't like to have that kind of thing said about them to a clergyman. Besides, this isn't a church. It's just where I live."

"Oh. Oops. I'm sorry, Helen."

"It's all right, Chris." Helen's voice was faint.

The priest decided to divert the conversation. He said, "I notice that Louis isn't with you. Is he well?"

Christine frowned. "I was going to ask you if you know where he is. Isn't this where he comes on Sundays?"

Where he had been roiled with mirth, the old priest now found a rising tide of alarm. He had missed Louis at Mass. Louis missed Mass on Sunday about as often as the Moon shone blue. "When did you last see him?"

"Wednesday morning. He said he had some personal business to take care of and would be away until tonight. I thought you might know more about it. I've been worried."

"Well, child, if he said he'd be away, and he's not yet supposed to be back, there's no real reason to worry, is there?"
How much do you know, child? And how much do I have the right to tell you?

"He hasn't called, Father. Why wouldn't he call?"

Schliemann shook his head. Maintaining an expression of friendly interest untainted by fear cost him considerable effort. "I don't know, Christine. He said nothing to me. But did he say he'd be calling you?"

Christine thought for a moment. "No."

"Then he might have had to go somewhere he can't do that."

"Why wouldn't he be able to call?"

"Oh, it could be any number of reasons."
He could be lying dead in a ditch, for example.
"Louis is his own employer, and he sometimes has to go places on business where it would be very hard to call you at a normal hour."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Christine turned to Helen, who had regained most of her composure. "He didn't tell you he'd call, did he? Just that he'd be back tonight?"

The petite woman shook her head. "That's all, Chris. Just that he'd be back tonight."

Schliemann turned to Helen. "Has Christine been staying with you, Helen?"

Helen colored again. The priest was surprised to see her hand snake out to grasp Christine's. It looked like a very strong grip.

"Yes, Father." There was a note of defiance behind the words.

He noticed himself nodding in the characteristic manner of the aged, with his entire torso, and forced himself to stop.
You look as if you're on a rocking horse when you do that.

"Well, it appears you're being well cared for, child. And I'm sure Louis will be back in touch this evening, as he promised."

Christine shook her head.

"No, you're not." Her face had gone hard. "Don't lie to me, Father. You think I can't tell when I've taken someone by surprise? You're as worried as I am, or I'll eat your next pound of shit."

Helen gasped again. "Christine! I'm so sorry, Father, perhaps we'd better go." She rose and began to tug at the young woman's arm, trying to drag Christine out of her chair. Christine didn't budge.

Schliemann stood and held up his hands. "Peace, Helen. She's right." He waited while the two women settled down. "I might not approve of her choice of idiom, but she's right, and I shouldn't have tried to conceal it. Now let's all calm down. If you like, I'll try to help you make some sense of what you know."

The two women began to talk excitedly. Schliemann leaned forward and listened.

***

"It's easy to worry about him, isn't it, Father?" Helen's mouth quirked into a rueful smile. "Not that it helps much."

Schliemann nodded. "Truer words were never spoken, Helen. He's the most headlong person I know. How did you come to know him?"

Helen glanced over her shoulder toward the lavatory. Christine showed no sign of returning.

"I run the women's department at Albrecht's. He brought Chris to me and asked me to help buy her clothes."

"Ah, so you're responsible for the improvement in her wardrobe! My compliments, dear. I knew it couldn't be Louis's work."

"You mean the King of Flannel Shirts? No, mostly he watched."

Schliemann chuckled and folded his hands over his knee. "I must admit to a preference for the fashions of bygone days myself, but then I would, being old. And a priest is supposed to disregard the communicant's worldly raiment and attend to the soul, in any case." He paused. "What faith were you brought up in, if I may?"

Helen frowned slightly. "Episcopalian."

"Ah, the Anglican Catholics. Lovely people, most of them, regardless of what they think of His Holiness. Do you retain any interest in matters of faith? I'm required by my professional oaths to ask, you know."

"I, ah, haven't thought about it for a long time."

"A pity. I enjoy talking about such things with persons not of my fold. A pastor gets entirely too much deference from his parishioners."

Mischief entered Helen's eyes. "Do you? Well, we'll have to bring Christine to visit more often, won't we?"

"The girl is a pistol, and no doubt of it. But you know her history. If anyone's entitled to a little plain speaking, she is."

Helen threw another glance over her shoulder. "Father, I know about clerical confidentiality, but there is one thing I'd like to ask about Louis."

"Ask away, dear. I'll answer if I can."

She slid forward in her seat and dropped her voice. "Is he gay?"

Schliemann chuckled. "Louis is heterosexual, Helen."

"He would have told you otherwise, wouldn't he?"

"I think so."

"Damn." She straightened up. "Excuse me, Father, it's just that --"

"No need to explain, dear. I understand."

Christine stepped out of the lavatory to a rumble of rushing water.

***

"Louis, no."

"Miles, I have to, so you might as well quit arguing with me about it and help me get moving." Louis struggled against a flood of pain from his abdomen as he dressed.

Jefferson shook his head. "You won't get ten feet from the front doors before your incisions open up."

"Is this your way of trying to tell me you might have dropped a stitch?" Closing the zipper of his jeans seemed to take all the strength he had. Thankfully, the waistband was several inches above the incision.

"Louis, I'm trying to keep you alive!"

He fastened the buttons on his shirt, trying not to look at his friend. "I know, Miles, and I love you for it. But I have to do this. If you sewed me up properly, I haven't got anything to worry about. Believe me, I already know about the pain."

"What in the world do you have to do that's so Goddamned important that you can't stay here another week and finish convalescing?"

Louis faced Jefferson squarely. The young physician's face was a picture of incomprehension. "I have a responsibility. I left it with someone else for a little while, and it's time to pick it up again. Believe me, you would do the same." He grinned. "What do you think I needed the time for, anyway? Television?"

The resident sputtered for several seconds before hurling himself into the room's guest chair. Louis sat on the edge of his bed and studied his friend.

"I suppose it can't hurt to tell you. Remember a motorcycle accident victim from about six weeks ago? A young woman with heavy facial damage? I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut you sewed her up, too."

Jefferson stared in shock. "She left here with
you?
My God, the receptionist hasn't stopped talking about it! Did you know there was a gang of thugs in here not five minutes after she left, threatening everyone in sight and demanding to know where she was?"

Louis nodded. "I know all about it. Keep it under your hat, would you?" He rose, hoisted his travel bag and started for the door.

"Louis, wait. Just a minute more, please."

Louis stopped and turned back to his friend. Jefferson sat facing away.

"I think I bought you your four months. But you ought to know how it's going to be from now on." The resident slid forward in the metal chair, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands. His eyes were fixed on the empty hospital bed.

"The pain from the surgery will abate, if you don't overextend yourself. But you're not well. There's malignant tissue throughout your body by now. Eventually it'll get the upper hand."

"I know, Miles."

"I did manage to get your organs cleaned up. They're actually in pretty good shape, all things considered. You're not likely to have any more of those nausea attacks. The main trouble site will be your spine. There was no way to get to the tumors there without killing or paralyzing you."

Jefferson massaged his forehead with his fingertips.

"Eventually you'll start to have CNS incidents. Surges of transitory pain, loss of motor control, fits of localized temporary paralysis. At first they'll probably affect only your legs, but that will change. Toward the end, your control of your body will be very unreliable. Without medication, you'll have frequent bouts of intense pain, blackouts, and irregular stoppages of breathing. Your vision and hearing might start to come and go."

The young physician turned to look over his shoulder at Louis.

"Will you come back here when it starts to get like that, please?" The words were soft.

Louis nodded. "I will, Miles, I promise."

Jefferson nodded and turned toward the bed again. He covered his face as the door closed between them. Louis strode toward the stairwell, fighting down the agony from his guts. He wanted to run from the hospital at top speed, lest Miles find some way to compel him to remain. He wanted to run back to Miles and give him what comfort he could.

I'll be back, Miles. But not to stay.

***

It was late in the afternoon when Louis reached Malcolm's trailer. The sight of the gaunt, haggard creature that opened the door to greet him, indisputably Malcolm and yet not Malcolm as he should be, was as much of a shock as he could withstand.

"Dear God, what's happened to you?"

Loughlin smirked. "You took the words out of my mouth. Get in here and leave the flies outside."

The trailer was a mess. From the plenitude of dirty dishes and leavings of meals, one might have guessed that Loughlin had hosted a dinner for fifty the night before. Louis tried not to gawk at the disarray.

If he wants you to know, he'll tell you.

"It's been a while." The older man seated himself at the dinette table.

Louis grinned without humor and joined him. "I know. I've been horribly busy. Forgive me?"

Loughlin shrugged. "Forget it. How's your charity case getting on?"

"About as well as could be expected." Louis drew a deep breath. "Malcolm, a few years ago, when we were in the thick of my training, you told me that there were some advanced pain management techniques you could teach me, if I ever had a need."

"You have a need?"

Louis nodded, trying to relax the muscles of his abdomen.

"Big time."

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Chapter
16

Christine was quiet for days after Louis's return. She refrained from asking him about where he had been or what he had been doing. She was cheerful enough, and showed all her previous enthusiasm for her studies, but Louis couldn't shake the conviction that she was holding something in. Twice he started to ask about it, then checked himself.

By the week's end, the pain from the operation had subsided. He was far from well and knew it, but at least he didn't need to stay in one of Malcolm's semi-trance states all the time. It would be another two or three weeks before the muscles of his abdominal wall had healed enough to allow him to return to a modified version of his exercise regimen.

He caught himself in the middle of thinking about it and began to wonder. Why continue to expend so much of his time and energy on exercise, anyway? He could see the end of his life from here. He wasn't training for a reason anymore. His muscle tone wouldn't deteriorate that much in six months. What would it matter if he died no longer being able to bench press three hundred pounds?

The whole train of thought tasted wrong. He could find no logical fault with it, but it smelled of danger, of betrayal. He put it aside.

On the following Sunday after he had come back from Mass, over an ordinary brunch of bacon, eggs and crisply toasted English muffins, Christine finally asked him to explain religion.

***

Louis declined to answer Christine's question. Instead he directed her to put on jeans and sneakers, and then join him in the back yard. He took her through several minutes of stretching, then positioned her with her back against the northern run of his split-rail fence. He measured a distance of forty yards from where she stood, laid a large rock there, and brought out a stopwatch.