The Loft Page 17

  Annie laughs. “We can’t possibly…”

  “Sure we can,” Max says and pops the cork.

  The sound wakes Oliver. Once he is awake, Annie cranks up the back of his bed. This time it is a bit higher than before.

  “Max came to visit,” she says. “And she brought champagne to celebrate your recovery.”

  Oliver smiles. “Too soon.”

  “It’s never too soon to celebrate love and friendship,” Max says. “You’ve got to do it while you can. Wait, and someday it might be too late.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Annie asks.

  “Just drink,” Max answers.

  That evening Phyllis, Liz and a night porter named Slim all have a glass of champagne. Although Oliver doesn’t touch a drop and Annie has only a single sip, this small celebration feels like Mardi Gras.

  Annie

  I can’t say whether or not I believed in miracles before, but I surely do now. Oliver waking up as he did had to be a gift from God. There’s no other explanation. Even Doctor Sharma admits there’s no drug or stimulation device capable of waking a person from a coma. It’s up to God and the person. I’d like to think I helped Oliver, but honestly all I did was remind him of the reasons he had for living.

  I realize Oliver has a long road ahead of him, but at least we know he’s going to make it. Knowing makes everything easier.

  For now, Oliver and I are keeping news of the baby to ourselves. It’s a secret we want to hold on to for a little while before we share it with the world. Anyway, I want him to be the one to announce it. Seeing Oliver whole and listening to him tell about us having a baby will be more than enough happiness to fill my heart.

  I wish I could tell you we created this child on that magical night in the loft, but according to Doctor Sharma it happened a month earlier. He says he did a quantitative blood test, and it indicated I was seven weeks along.

  Oliver and I have been married less than five months, but it feels as if we’ve already lived a lifetime together. It’s been tumultuous that’s for sure. We never did get to take our honeymoon, and it’s probably too late for that now.

  I’m thinking maybe we’ll just wait, and this time next year we can take a family vacation.

  God willing.

  Of Things to Come

  On Tuesday morning Oliver is transferred to the third floor ambulatory ward. After the silent isolation of the ICU, the hustle and bustle of the third floor is a welcome change. Carts rattle through the hallways, buzzers sound and an endless stream of messages echo across the intercom.

  He is not yet able to get out of bed, but Doctor Sharma says it will only be a matter of days. Oliver can already hold a sitting position and shift his right arm forward or backward.

  Annie is allowed to stay that first night, but on the second night when the chime that signals the end of visiting hours sounds she is told to leave.

  “But I’ve been with Oliver since the day he was admitted,” Annie argues.

  Brenda Moss, the night nurse and mother of four teenage boys, is used to arguments and pays them little mind.

  “That’s the rule,” she says flatly.

  “Oliver needs me. If—”

  “Not anymore,” Brenda cuts in. “He doesn’t need you anymore. He’s doing fine, better than most.”

  A washboard of doubt settles on Annie’s forehead. “I’d feel better if—”

  “You’d feel better if you got a good night’s sleep and let my patient do the same,” Brenda says. “So scoot. I promise to take good care of your husband.”

  Annie is left with no alternative. Before she leaves, she places her cell phone in Oliver’s lap where it is within easy reach.

  “The house is on speed dial,” she says. “If you need anything, anything at all, just press one and I’ll come back.”

  “I. Am. Fine,” he answers. In a single day Oliver has begun to hook words together. He can now express his thoughts; however, putting the words together is a slow and tiring process.

  “I know you’re fine.” Annie says. “But I wanted you to realize that I’m available if you need me.” She tries to make this reply sound nonchalant, but behind her words is a gigantic ball of fear.

  ~ ~ ~

  It is near ten when Annie arrives at Memory House. The house is dark. Ethan and Laura are already asleep. Now that Oliver is doing well, they are thinking about returning home to Florida. In a few days they will be gone.

  Guided by the glow of the hall nightlight, Annie climbs the stairs. In the loft there is only the light of the moon and stars. It is enough.

  Wearing a clean tee shirt and panties, she slides under the comforter. The bed still has the smell of Oliver’s aftershave. So much has changed and yet…

  She looks up at the stars, and it is as if Oliver is there beside her. She hears the sound of his laughter and then her own voice.

  I wonder if we’ve made a baby tonight…

  Annie bolts upright. She knows she has found the memory they’ve left in this room. The sweetness of it is almost overwhelming. Throughout the long hours of the night, she thinks back on all of the memories she and Oliver have made and she comes to realize the sweetest of all is yet to come.

  Moments before the sun crosses the horizon she cradles an arm around her tummy.

  “Come on, little one,” she says, “it’s time for us to get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll go visit your daddy.”

  Annie slips beneath the comforter and closes her eyes. This night she doesn’t dream about the past; she dreams of the future. She sees herself with crinkles at the corners of her eyes and grandchildren on her knee. Oliver sits beside her. His hair is silver, and he looks remarkably like his father.

  “Remember when…” he whispers in her ear, and they both laugh.

  The sun is high in the sky when Annie wakes. The dream is gone, but so are her fears. She has seen tomorrow, and it is truly beautiful.

  A Time of Renewal

  Oliver is at the hospital for more than a month. Nine days after he is moved to the third floor, he has the second surgery on his leg. This time Annie does not sit and weep. She has begun crocheting baby blankets, so she sits alongside Max in the waiting room and adds another nine rows of stitching to the yellow blanket.

  The baby is no longer a secret. The day Ethan and Laura came to the hospital to say goodbye, Oliver told them. It wasn’t the elegant speech they’d planned; he simply patted Annie’s tummy and said, “Our baby.”

  Laura already had her suspicions. She’d seen the look in Annie’s eyes. It’s a look every mother recognizes, one of pure unadulterated happiness.

  Once Oliver’s parents know, Annie can’t wait to tell Ophelia, Max and Giselle. She calls them all three that same afternoon.

  “With a baby and the apothecary, it looks like I may not be coming back to work for quite a while,” she tells Giselle.

  “I suspected as much,” Giselle replies. “The night of the party I thought…”

  Giselle says she’s already hired a trainee who she admits doesn’t have Annie’s perceptive abilities but should work out well.

  Max is the next call. She claims she had no idea.

  “Was it that night you launched the loft?” she jokes.

  Annie laughs along with her. “According to the doctor it was a month earlier.”

  They chat for a while, but before they hang up Annie tells Max she might want to start thinking about what it means to be a godmother. That afternoon Max sets aside the insurance office layout she’s working on and starts designing a baby’s room.

  The final call is to Ophelia. Annie has saved this call for last because it is the most special. When she shares the news, Annie says, “I’d like to think you’ll be a grandmother to the baby and teach him or her to appreciate the magic of life as you did me.”

  “Her,” Ophelia replies. “Your baby’s a girl. A girl who’s going to have the same abilities you have.”

  “How in the world can you know that?” Annie
asks.

  Ophelia laughs. “Magic.”

  What Ophelia has forecasted is only a premonition. A wish, perhaps. Only time will tell if she is right, but Annie somehow thinks she is.

  According to Doctor Sharma, Oliver’s rehabilitation is progressing beautifully. In just three short weeks he has gone from struggling to lift an arm to a full-blown strength-building program in the rehabilitation center.

  Walter is the therapist assigned to Oliver. He is a man with a strange sense of humor and shoulders that fill the doorway. For the first few days, he comes to the room and eases Oliver into the simple stretching range of motion exercises.

  Lifting Oliver’s palm against his, he says, “Hokay, now push my hand back.”

  Since Walter is as solid as a cement wall such a feat is impossible, but Oliver tries. After two minutes of pushing, Walter relaxes his hand and lets Oliver succeed.

  “Gut job,” Walter says. “Gut job. Now ve do de udder hand.”

  Oliver has moved on to standing and walking. The cast on his leg is cumbersome and heavy, but he now has enough upper body strength to balance himself on the walker and thump his way down the hallway to the sunroom.

  Twice a day Oliver spends ninety minutes in the rehabilitation room; the rest of the day he is free to do as he pleases. Annie comes to visit every day. Max stops by in the evening.

  Ophelia and Lillian come on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 3PM. It is a schedule they have set up with the Baylor automobile services. They bring their pinochle cards and play at the table in the sunroom. Oliver has come to love the game as they do and claims this is something they should continue even after he has left the hospital. On occasion Annie joins the game, but now that she has started crocheting a pink sweater she has less of an interest in cards.

  During the weeks Oliver is in the hospital he and Annie spend many long hours talking. Sometimes they speak of the future, and sometimes they talk about all that has happened. Annie tells him of the days when he was in a coma and Doctor Sharma’s many kindnesses.

  “Were you aware of any of that?” she asks.

  Oliver says there are things he can remember: the sound of her voice, the touch of her hand on his. He cannot point to a word or a specific instance; all of those memories are shadows seen in a darkened room. He remembers the smell of coffee and the saltiness of tears. Sometimes at night when the third floor has gone quiet and most patients are asleep, he can close his eyes and still feel the weight of her head against her shoulder. He knows this is one thing he will never forget.

  Although the cast is still on his right leg and will be there for another two weeks, Oliver is scheduled to come home the Friday before Thanksgiving. It will be another six weeks before he can return to work, but already he is planning to have the clerk bring a few case files to the house so he can prepare himself. He misses being at the courthouse just as Annie has missed working in the apothecary.

  Oliver

  Day after tomorrow I go home. It seems somehow strange to be saying that. With so many pieces of my memory missing it’s as if I’m starting a new life. Annie is my one constant. She is my bridge between what is and what was.

  I remember most of my life, but there’s a section missing. A month, maybe two months before the accident is gone. Not really gone I suppose, just misplaced. It’s somewhere in my brain, and Doctor Sharma believes little by little I’ll be able to find it.

  Annie told me about us moving into the loft. She says we were lying in bed, looking up at the stars and planning our life together, and when she talks about it her eyes glisten. I know this is a special memory, and it saddens me to say I don’t remember. I thought Annie would be upset by not my remembering, but she wasn’t. She gave me this funny little smile and said in that case we’d just have to do it all over again.

  The accident is also gone, but not remembering that is somewhat of a blessing. I don’t remember being in an ambulance or coming to the hospital, but I remember Annie being in the room with me. Not her face, but the sound of her voice and the feel of her hands touching me. It was as if my eyes had been taken away but my other senses were left in place.

  This accident has changed our lives, mine and Annie’s both. I guess almost dying makes you realize how lucky you are to be living.

  People often talk about having a guardian angel. I’m luckier than most. I married mine.

  The Homecoming

  The sun is brilliant, but there is a chill in the air on the Friday Oliver comes home from the hospital. Annie has prayed there will be no rain this day, and she has gotten her wish.

  After she has packed the things accumulated during his stay at Mercy General, an orderly comes with a wheelchair. When they start down the hallway, she runs ahead to bring the car around.

  Oliver is waiting when Annie pulls up to the front door. He smiles as he lifts himself from the wheelchair to a standing position. He leans heavily on the cane, but he can move on his own and prefers to do so. He now has a walking cast on his right leg. It will come off next week, but Doctor Sharma warns there is to be no driving for at least two weeks.

  Annie gets out, comes around and opens the passenger door. She has pushed the front seat back as far as it will go to accommodate the bulky cast. Climbing into the car is a slow process, but Oliver manages. Annie’s fingers itch to lift his leg for him, buckle his seat belt, adjust the position of his foot, but she holds back. These are things he wants to do for himself. He is forging a pathway back to normalcy, and too much help will only slow his progress.

  A number of friends and neighbors have mentioned coming to visit, but Annie has asked them to wait until next week. She wants to spend a few days alone with Oliver. It is a time to reconnect and remember.

  She is hopeful the magic of Memory House will bring back some of what Oliver has lost. Unfortunately it is now too cool to lie on a blanket beneath the stars, and the loft will have to wait until he is strong enough to climb the stairs. But there are other familiar touchstones, and she is counting on those.

  When he first steps inside the door, Oliver gives a nostalgic sigh. The living room is familiar. The sofa, chairs, bookcases are all part of the memories he still has.

  “Do you remember the new study?” Annie asks.

  A puzzled look settles on Oliver’s face. He is uncertain.

  She leads him down the hallway, walking slowly enough for him to keep pace but not offering assistance.

  “I’ve hung your painting of the Wyattsville courthouse in here,” Annie says. At the doorway she steps back so he is the first to enter.

  He steps inside the room and looks across at the desk. The mug filled with pens and pencils, the clock, the notebook left open—everything is as it should be. He turns to Annie and smiles.

  “I remember this room,” he says.

  He goes to the desk and lifts the notebook. Ella Mae Grimley he has written. There are notes on both the boy and girl. Margaret Grimley, angry and vindictive, the notes say.

  Oliver stands there for a moment, and he can picture Ella Mae, a thin girl, barely old enough to be called a woman. Two children clinging to her skirt and an angry mother-in-law scowling across the courtroom.

  He looks at the date on the notes. October 12. The weekend before the accident, yet he remembers.

  For now that’s how Oliver’s memory file is arranged. This happened before the accident; that happened after. It is a dividing line of time. It won’t always be this way. In the years to come that line will become blurred or change altogether. Oliver knows life is filled with the events by which we measure time. Perhaps next year or the year after he will say, “Oh, that happened the year the baby was born” and “This was the summer we planted the oak tree.”

  Room by room they walk through the house. Some things Oliver remembers; others are only vaguely familiar.

  In the early afternoon Annie brews a pot of dandelion tea and fixes a plate of sandwiches. “Would you like to have lunch on the back porch?” she asks.

 
Oliver nods.

  The air is cool, but the sun warms their shoulders. Annie has a cozy covering the pot, and when she pours the tea a small puff of steam rises from the cup. Oliver sips it slowly.

  “It’s very peaceful out here,” he says.

  “It’s my second favorite spot in the house,” Annie replies.

  Oliver smiles. “Your favorite is the loft, right?”

  Annie returns his smile and nods.

  After lunch Oliver moves to the recliner in the living room and dozes. He tires easily, and Doctor Sharma has warned that he will need plenty of rest. Annie has already put a down comforter on the bed in the small downstairs room. When Oliver is stronger they will return to the loft, but for now she will be happy just to feel the warmth of his body lying beside hers.

  While Oliver naps, Annie starts preparing dinner. Tonight is a homecoming so she is making his favorite: lamb stew. On the sideboard there is a bottle of Pinot Noir she has saved for this occasion.

  While the thick slices of bacon are sizzling in the iron skillet, she rolls the chunks of lamb in a mix of flour and finely-ground eyebright. It is an herb that will help shed light on shadowy memories.

  Annie adds the crumbled bacon, carrots, potatoes and onion to the pot, then turns to the counter and rolls out a round of biscuit dough. Just as she is about to pop them into the oven, Oliver appears at the door.

  “Is that lamb stew I smell?”

  Annie turns with a smile. “It certainly is. A welcome home dinner to show how much I’ve missed having you here.”

  “I’ve missed being here,” he replies.