When Life Turned Purple (20 page)

Suddenly, the doors banged open and two guys crashed through. One held up a gun in one hand and supported his bleeding friend with the other arm. The bleeding friend was on his knees and hunched over. He wore a gray hoodie.

“Move it!” he said, waving the gun. “My man needs a doctor
fast
.”

Russ froze, his back to the duo, but he kept his neck craned to see them.

The head of the guy with the hoodie hung down. But had he seen Russ back at the cemetery? And would he recognize the lady he’d kick-stomped?

He glanced at the nurse out of the corner of his eye and widened his eyes at her while darting his back and forth in an effort to signal to her that this was the thug.

His body mostly blocked her from being seen by the duo and her own eyes widened, her mouth forming a little “o.”

She backed up one step at a time, gesturing Russ to follow her, as she kept glancing behind him.

They moved like that until they were out of the waiting room, then he sped after her as she sprinted down the hall and pushed open a heavy door leading to the stairwell.

As they jogged down the stairs, the nurse called up to him, “Why didn’t you just finish off the sucker?”

“I ran out of bullets,” Russ panted.

She snorted.

They reached the bottom and the nurse stopped and had Russ sit down with the old lady.

“I’m just gonna check her out as best I can,” she said.

She lifted the lady’s shirt and looked at her stomach and hip, gently pressing them with her doughy hands.

The old lady gasped and whimpered, and the nurse kept praising her for being “one tough cookie.”

Finally, the nurse said, “Listen, I don’t think she’s got anything broken. Maybe a couple of ribs cracked, but maybe not. It’s not one-hundred percent without an X-ray, but I’ve been at this since before you were born, so my guess is pretty good. Her internal organs are bruised, maybe.”

Then she told him how to nurse the lady back to health.

Russ nodded and repeated the instructions back to the nurse to make sure he got them right.

Then he went out the door and swung around back to where he’d parked his car.

He made it there pretty fast, even though he figured the guys wouldn’t be coming out of the hospital so fast. He didn’t see any signs of security guards or cops, although they must have been called.

This time, he took the time to recline the passenger seat back all the way and lay the lady on the seat. Then he buffered her body with a large rolled-up blanket he kept in the backseat and carefully put the seatbelt over her thighs.

Then he jumped into to the driver’s seat and drove off.

As they sped along, he glanced over at the lady.

“What’s your name, little lady?” he said in a fake Southern accent.

She smiled wanly. “Pamela King,” she whispered.

“Well, Mrs. King,” said Russ, “My name is Russ and I’ll be taking you over to my place where me and my wife, Lia, will fix you up good.”

She nodded once and didn’t tell him to call her Pamela because “Mrs.” made her feel old like so many other women her age liked to say.

As he pulled into the parking space, he signaled to Lia who watched from the window. Her eyes widened as she saw him get Mrs. King out of the car. Russ got Mrs. King up the stairs without crumpling her so much this time—now that he was no longer on the run.

Lia met them at the door and Russ relayed the nurse’s instructions. Lia nodded and got Mrs. King comfortable in their bed.

She gave Mrs. King anti-inflammatory painkillers “to ease the swelling and pain,” then she got to work on a soup while Mrs. King rested. Then Lia made Mrs. King drink a little bit of the soup “just to give your body something to work with before you sink into a rejuvenating sleep.”

Russ moved a bookcase in front of the safe room door, then they left the room so Mrs. King could sleep.

Then Lia served Russ his own large bowl of soup and a beer. After he’d had two servings (of both), he told her everything that had happened.

Lia remained silent after Russ finished, but lurched forward on her knees to cradle his head against her neck.

It was nice.

Then with a deep sigh, she released him and looked at him with a warm smile in her eyes as Russ stroked the side of her face.

Lia gave another deep sigh and said, “I’m glad you made it. And I’m glad you brought her here. I wouldn’t have been able to just leave her there, either.”

“I guess I can handle having her around for the next six weeks, but what do we do with her after?”

Lia nodded and said, “We can see in the meantime if she has family. Or maybe we’ll just adopt her anyway. Right now, we can afford to take care of her. Things haven’t gotten that bad yet.” Now her mouth spread into a grin that brightened her whole face. “And you’re changing your DNA.”

Russ’s eyebrows popped up. “I’d forgotten all about that.” Then he shook his head. “What a crazy situation. I went there to apologize for my part in what basically ended up being two deaths, and I ended up emptying my gun into some dude.” Russ paused. “And for all I know, he could still die.”

Lia rested one hand on his arm and ruffled his hair with the other. “This is different,” she said. “Destroying something evil is different than destroying something innocent.”

He looked at her.

“You couldn’t have saved Mrs. King any other way,” Lia continued. “And if he doesn’t make it—and I kind of hope he doesn’t—you’ll have saved other innocent lives too.” Lia glanced at the closed door to their bedroom and said, ‘In the way people want to be led, Heaven helps them from above’.”

“Huh?”

“It’s this Jewish saying. The authors of those books I’m so into? Well, they’re Jewish. So I wanted to look up stuff about Judaism and see where they got some of their inspiration from.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Just that. You wanted to change your DNA, you wanted to be a better person, so God threw you curve ball to help you get there. And you hit a home run.”

“Huh,” said Russ.

They heard Mrs. King call from the bedroom and they both rose to knock on the door before opening it to go in.

Mrs. King lay there, squinting at them.

“How are you feeling?” asked Lia.

“Like I’ve been kicked in the ribs,” said Mrs. King.

“Well,” said Russ, “you were.”

“I know.”

Lia rolled her computer chair over to the bed and sat down. She spoke to Mrs. King in a voice that was soft and gentle with concern, her forehead crinkling. Russ stood there, gazing at Lia, without really hearing what she discussed with Mrs. King.

Then Lia rose and went to the kitchen. Russ leaned against the wall and watched Lia through the doorway as she strained the soup into a disposable coffee cup, put a sippy cover on it, and plunked a straw through it.

Then she came back with it to the bedroom and arranged the pillows so that Mrs. King’s head was propped up enough to put the straw in her mouth while Lia sat next to her, holding the cup low.

After Mrs. King had finished most of it, Lia said, “Are you ready for that mumio capsule we discussed?”

Mrs. King uttered a yes.

Lia held the cup low again so that Mrs. King could sip the soup to swallow the capsule.

“Great,” said Lia. “If there are any fractures, this will help the bones renew cells to mend them together.”

After Mrs. King finished, she allowed Lia to trace her meridians. Lia didn’t touch Mrs. King as Lia had when she traced Russ’s meridians, but instead held her hand a couple of inches above the supposed meridian line. When Lia started holding different points on Mrs. King’s feet, Russ knew she was using acupressure to sedate or strengthen internal organs and their accompanying meridians, like what she’d done with him.

“So much of healing is in the mind,” Lia told Russ later. “It’s important to keep telling her that she
will
get better and that this treatment
will
help her.”

But the next couple of days were hard.

Mrs. King needed round-the-clock care. She needed support in sitting, walking—including going to the bathroom—and she needed help with feeding. The burden of the care fell on Lia, who cooked and fed her and treated her with herbs and acupressure.

Russ felt like a burr was running under his skin. He didn’t know when those pods would be back down. In the meantime, they were still hovering in the sky. He was fed up with having to open up the sofa bed to sleep every night, he didn’t like the idea of him and Lia being trapped in the safe room with Mrs. King for who-knows-how-long, and Russ just in general felt jarred at having an unexpected stranger around—even though it had been his idea to bring her.

But when he discussed his mood with Lia in the kitchen as Mrs. King napped, Lia understood him and even agreed.

“It’s stressful for me too,” she whispered. “But it’s the right thing to do. She’s not really bothering us and while caring for her is getting be a drag, we don’t have much else to do anyway. Sure, we don’t enjoy it, but there isn’t anything really
wrong
. There’s a kind of emotional discomfort, but caring for her isn’t really taking anything from us. What are we really sacrificing to help her? Hardly anything.”

Russ had to agree.

“Anyway, I do like her,” said Lia.

“Yeah,” said Russ. “I don’t know why, but I like her, too.”

And it seemed that Lia’s treatments were working because after the initial couple of days, Mrs. King wasn’t in as much pain and she even managed to sit up by herself.

She’d muttered her thanks to them as often as she could throughout that time, and now she squinted at them and thanked them again with a gruff dignity.

“Not many people would have done what you folks have done.”

Russ smiled and flapped his hand at her as if waving off her praise.

“I really can’t thank you enough,” said Mrs. King. “Ever.”

“It’s really fine,” said Lia. “I don’t know how this will sound, but we just couldn’t leave you there. I mean, Russ just couldn’t stand seeing that guy assaulting you, and then he just couldn’t leave you lying there, and then not at the hospital, either. And of course, we couldn’t just leave you to suffer away on our sofa.” Lia cocked her head to one side and gave her a gentle smile. “What I mean to say is that you don’t need to thank us. We
want
to do this. It’s like—it’s like we have no other choice, but in a good way.”

Mrs. King nodded. “All the same. Not many people would have done so much.” She gave a deep and painful sigh as Lia had told her to do to prevent pneumonia, even though her aching ribs obviously made it hurt.

“I suppose my glasses are still at the cemetery,” she said.

Russ hadn’t thought about whether she wore glasses. Where would she get new glasses now?

Lia bit her lip and winced at Russ.

He winced back and shrugged, then said, “I didn’t even think of that.”

Mrs. King shook her head. “And why should you have? You had enough on your plate—more than enough. I’m grateful to you for saving my life and everything else you and your wife have done.”

Lia rubbed her lips together, then said, “Mrs. King, we’re willing to keep you here as long as necessary, but for your own sake—do you have any family or anyone else we can contact for you? Is there anyone worried about where you are?”

Mrs. King nodded once. “Yes,” she said. “I have a nephew on Capitol Hill. If you’ll give me your phone, I’ll call him.”

Lia dialed the number for Mrs. King, then she and Russ left the room so Mrs. King could speak in privacy.

Soon, she called them back and said, “My nephew would like to come and get me.”

Lia opened her mouth to speak, but Russ placed his hand on her arm. Her mouth still open, Lia turned her head to look at him.

“Come here a minute,” he said and led Lia out.

Not caring how odd or rude it seemed, Russ shut the bedroom door and they went into the kitchen.

“I’m not sure her nephew should know where we live,” he said.

“But Mrs. King already knows.”

“Does she?”

Lia frowned, then said, “No, I guess she doesn’t. She wasn’t exactly noting down street signs and house numbers on the way here, was she? And she can’t see much out the window from the bed.”

Russ shook his head. “See? I think we should meet up with her nephew somewhere and transfer Mrs. King to him there.”

Lia continued to frown. “But that’s also a risk,” she said. “I mean, the bad guys are out and even willing to attack some harmless old lady placing flowers on a grave in a cemetery.”

Russ pressed his lips together, rubbing his chin as he frowned. “Good point.”

They stood there a moment in silent contemplation until Russ said, “Thought of a better idea yet?”

Lia thought for another moment, then slowly shook her head.

They heard Mrs. King talking to her nephew on the phone, but couldn’t make out the words.