The Medusa Amulet

Chapter 44

“Where is David?” Sarah murmured, as Gary took a seat beside her bed in the hospice. “I need to see David. Where is he?”

Gary wished he knew, and he wished he knew what to tell her. He had been waiting for his cell phone to ring any second, telling him that David had at least landed in Chicago. But so far, nothing. “Soon,” he said, for the hundredth time, “I’m sure he’ll be here very soon.” He’d even tried reaching him on the last cell-phone number David had called from, but he’d gotten a mysterious message, in Italian yet, saying that Dr. Jantzen was not available. Or at least that’s what he thought it had said.

He glanced out the window at the rock garden, with its ornamental pool-now frozen-and its white-barked birch trees. He could see the lighted windows on the other side, too, occupied no doubt by other dying patients. The late-afternoon light was even more attenuated by the cloudy skies and the oncoming storm. He was terrified that David’s flight-whichever one he was on-had been delayed by the weather.

Sarah’s eyes closed again, and her head twisted on the pillow. Gary wondered if he should call the nurse and get her some more painkillers. “What do you need?” he asked.

“My mouth,” she whispered. “It’s so dry.”

He reached into the plastic cup for a chip of ice and put it on her tongue. It seemed as if she didn’t have enough strength even to suck on it, and the chemo had left her with mouth sores that refused to heal. But when the ice was gone, he picked up the tube of Vaseline and gently rubbed some of it on her parched lips. Her eyes took on that faraway look again.

“Maybe I should make a meat loaf,” she said, in one of the typical non sequiturs brought on by the medications.

“That sounds good.”

“David always likes it.”

“So do I.”

“And chocolate pie for dessert,” she said. “It makes Emme so happy.”

Emme was home now, with her grandmother. She’d come by a few hours ago, but Sarah had been seized with a feverish bout of pain and nausea, and the scene had suddenly gotten so awful that Gary had had to take Emme out to the car and rock her in his arms until she was able to stop crying.

Much as he hated for that to be her last view of her mother, he wasn’t sure that there’d be time for her to come back again. He’d told his mom to put her to bed early and try to get her to go to sleep.

Gary hadn’t had more than three hours of sleep in a row for days.

But there was a faint smile on Sarah’s face now, which meant that she was probably imagining herself back in her own kitchen, preparing that meat-loaf dinner. Just as well, Gary thought. When she was conscious, she was fretful and wore herself out asking about David, or worrying about what should be done to help Emme through the trauma once she was gone. When the morphine was kicking in, she was off on a cloud, but untroubled.

Gary slumped back in the chair, yawning and scrubbing his face with his hands. Dreadful as it was to be there, at least this place wasn’t as dismal and antiseptic as the hospital. Each room was private, and done up in neutral colors, with indirect lighting and soft, soothing music. You weren’t even allowed to use your cell phones except in the main lounge area. That, plus the view of the outdoor garden, gave the hospice a peaceful, even comforting, atmosphere.

A flock of sparrows landed in the garden, pecking at the ground between the tufts of snow and ice. Gary picked up a piece of the dried toast from the meal tray that Sarah hadn’t touched, left the room, and went down and around the corridor. A door there opened directly into the garden, and he stepped outside.

The cold air was a shock, but a bracing one. He took a few steps on the little winding path that circled the fountain, and the birds nervously flitted up onto the branches of the birch trees. He tore the bread into tiny pieces and threw them on the ground.

“Go for it,” he said, and once he’d taken a step back, the birds swooped down.

He looked up at the gray sky, getting darker by the minute, just as an airplane, its red lights flashing, passed high overhead, heading toward O’Hare Airport. And he prayed-he prayed -that David was on it.