Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (107 page)

“Okay. Can’t wait to see you, Dr. Mortimer.”

Kate walked in. She abruptly stopped as I shrugged.

“How are you feeling these days?” he said.

“Great. Almost good as new. Most of the time.”

“Kate mentioned you’re going to culinary school in the fall. I think that’s absolutely wonderful.”

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. But I have to get in first.”

“You will,” he said. “Okay then. I’ll—”

“Dr. Mortimer?” I said quickly.

“Yes?”

“Be careful.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“Thank you, Abby,” he finally said. I thought I heard him sigh. “See you soon.”

CHAPTER 13

After I said hello to Kate and Evan, I finished pulling dinner together and put the ramekins in the oven. Kate took down the glasses and poured some wine. When Evan left to wash up, she came in close and whispered in my ear.

“What was that about?”

“I don’t know. He wants me to take a look at something he sent in an email.”

She nodded.

“Hey, how was the movie?”

“Amazing. Daniel Craig is the best Bond.”

“The stunts were something else,” Evan said, walking back in. “It smells great in here, Abby.”

After dinner we sat around and talked. It was nice to hang out with Evan. I liked him a lot. He was handsome and athletic and really friendly. Kate smiled through most of the night. I was glad she had found him.

“That was good stuff,” Evan said, clearing the plates off the table.

We made our way out to the living room. Evan sat next to Kate, holding her hand, as I took the big overstuffed chair across from them. They were good together, happy and relaxed. Their energy danced around, bright and fast. It wasn’t the brightest I had ever seen, but she really liked him.

Kate told us about the murder in Redmond she had been covering all week and Evan talked about a fire in Prineville. 

“It must be scary going into burning buildings,” I said. “I don’t think I could do it. I’d run in the other direction.”

“It is. But honestly, most of the time, those kind of thoughts don’t hit me until afterwards, when I think back on it. When I’m in the moment, staring up at the smoke and the flames, I’m so juiced up on adrenaline that my only focus is on who is inside and needs help. That’s it, that’s all I care about. But then later that night, when I’m in bed and can’t get to sleep, that’s when I start thinking and that’s when I get scared. It’s then that I realize sometimes how close I might have come to dying.”

Evan and I had that in common. Sleepless nights with dark thoughts of death.

After a little while, we turned on the television and watched an episode of
Hawaii Five-O
. It started out fine, but fizzled halfway through. After it was over, Evan said goodnight in his best Danno impersonation with a lot of exaggerated hand gestures.

“This was fun,” he said.

“Come back anytime,” I said. “I’ll make
paella
or something.”

“I will. But it’s my turn next. How about when Ty gets back we all go check out the new Vietnamese restaurant that just opened up? I hear it’s really good.”

I knew that it was influenced by French cooking, but I hadn’t ever tried Vietnamese food.

“Awesome. I’ll let him know.”

I said goodbye and Kate walked Evan out.

After I loaded the dishwasher, I remembered the conversation with Dr. Mortimer earlier. I went to my bedroom and got my laptop.

CHAPTER 14

After seeing Evan out the door, Kate came back inside and pulled up a chair next to me. We sat at the table, staring at the computer screen. 

“Evan’s cool,” I said.

“Yeah. He is, huh?”

“I mean, he’s no Matt. But we have to take what we can get, right?”

I looked over at her and we both started smiling.

It had been a long, long time since I’d thought about Matt, Kate’s boyfriend before Dr. Mortimer. He was a starving artist type who seemed to be homeless for the majority of the time Kate was dating him. He liked carob muffins and not washing his hair. But all in all, he wasn’t a bad guy. I even missed him sometimes.

“I didn’t tell you the latest,” she said.

“What, are his paintings hanging in some big museum?”

I never understood the random streaks and blotches that dominated his canvases.

“I’m afraid not,” she said. “He’s in business school in Portland now. I saw some pictures of him on Facebook. He’s wearing suits and ties.”

“What? Really?”

That vision was somehow more bizarre than one of his paintings.

“Hard to believe, right? But there you have it.”

“Wow. You must really feel like you missed out. Being that he’ll probably end up as a Wall Street executive soon. You could have had it all, Kate!”

“Don’t be such a smart ass,” she said.

We laughed. But I suddenly realized that I was just stalling. I didn’t know why, but this Dr. Mortimer mystery email was making me nervous.

The only thing left to do was face it. I pulled up my account and clicked on the unopened letter in my inbox.

“Now let’s see what this is all about,” Kate said.

His letter was short and basically stated the same thing that he had told me on the phone. It was still vague and mysterious. I wondered why he had even bothered calling.

I clicked on the link at the bottom of the page, and it took us to a website called
RoadtoRecovery.com
. After quickly scanning through the page, I saw that it was a nonprofit organization that helped people who had suffered “catastrophic neurological events.”

“So he’s involved with a brain research and rehab charity?” Kate said. “Interesting.”

“Apparently.”

We silently read through the site. There was a short mission statement followed by lots of stories about people who had suffered trauma and were trying to get some sense of normalcy back.

One man had been in a car wreck that had left him partially blind, and he couldn’t work as a truck driver anymore. The foundation had given him a scholarship to return to school. Another victim was a young woman who had been in a boating accident. After being struck in the head and suffering brain injuries, she was confined to a wheelchair and needed 24-hour assistance. The foundation provided medical support for her.

Each story ended with a quote from the patient thanking
Road to Recovery
for its help.

“I couldn’t have survived without your generosity,” one accident victim said. “I don’t know where I’d be right now without your help. It’s been a long road, but I’m eternally grateful to the good people at Road to Recovery for supporting me every step of the way.”

I was struck by the phrase “good people.” That’s exactly what Dr. Mortimer was.

On another page there was an extensive list of all the companies and individuals that had contributed.

“Well, it seems like a worthy project for him to be part of,” Kate said when she had finished. “I can see Ben thriving in something like this.”

I found the “About” page and clicked on it.

I was surprised at the photo staring back at us. 

“He’s not just part of it, Kate,” I said. “Look.”

Dr. Mortimer was smiling in the picture. His hair was peppered with gray, and he had those trademark wrinkles around his eyes that always made him look so happy. He was a lot tanner than I remembered, too. 

The entire page was about Dr. Mortimer, the founder of the charity.

“Wow,” Kate said. “This is
his
project. It’s his charity. He must have started it while he was in India.”

The article included his biography, listing the schools he had attended, where he had done his residency, and the hospitals where he had worked as an emergency room doctor. It also mentioned his year abroad, where he helped orphans at one of the most impoverished hospitals in New Delhi.

I was glad that he had started something that seemed to be helping so many people. But I also wondered why he wanted my opinion on his new job, and why he wanted me to see the website so urgently. 

As I sat there confused, Kate discovered the reason.

“Did you read this part?” she said, pointing to the lower half of the screen.

I hadn’t.

It was a part I had skimmed over. But as I took a closer look, I felt my hands grip the edge of the table.

It was dedicated to me.

He didn’t use my name, but it didn’t take a brain doctor to figure out who he was talking about.

The seeds of this organization were planted almost five years ago when a young woman was admitted into the emergency room after having been pulled from an icy lake. She had been in a horrific car wreck that took the life of her friend, and was clinically dead when she arrived.

By some miracle we were able to save her. But coming back from the brink of death was only the beginning of her struggles. Throughout the next year, she faced an entirely new set of obstacles as she tried to reclaim her life. Once a gifted athlete, the serious neurological trauma she suffered in the accident prevented her from doing many of the things she loved. In addition, her memory was severely affected by the trauma, and she experienced a series of hallucinations. After the accident, she faced a new life that didn’t seem to be hers anymore. 

But this young woman was a fighter. She approached her injuries with a positive attitude and strong spirit, and eventually found a new life among the ashes of her old one.

Today she is a successful, well-adjusted young woman who has made a full recovery. She is truly an inspiration.

It was her story and spirit that inspired me to create this foundation. It is my goal to help patients like her: patients who wake up to a different life than the ones they left, confused and scared and often alone. These people need our help. They need to know they are not alone.

You are not alone.

It took a moment for it all to sink in.

I sat back, closing the lid of the laptop, and let out a long breath.

“I guess it makes sense now why he wanted me to take a look at it,” I said. 

“Yeah,” Kate said. “It does. Want some tea? I need some tea.”

“Sure, I’ll take a cup.”

She went to the kitchen and I heard her fill the kettle and open the pantry to search for the tea bags. She had an entire shelf with different boxes to choose from. But chances were good it would come down to Earl Grey. It was her go-to tea.

It left me with a few moments alone to think about Dr. Mortimer’s foundation and why that dedication page was hitting me the wrong way.

I mean, it was nice. He’d written a lot of kind things about me, and I was glad that my story had been the inspiration for him to help others.   

But it still didn’t feel right.

The kettle whistled and Kate came back, holding two mugs. She put one down in front of me.

“So, what do you think about it?” she said.

I shrugged.

“It feels kind of weird.”

“Yeah,” she said, taking a seat next to me. “You probably wish he could have left you out of it, even if he didn’t mention your name outright.”

I sighed.

“Yeah,” I said, blowing on the steam. “Something like that.”

“Just consider it a tribute of sorts, Abby. Don’t think too much about it. All that stuff about you having a strong spirit and being inspirational was really nice, right?”

“Sure.”

But it was also strange reading that because it had been a long time since I had thought of myself as brain damaged. Years really. It wasn’t the right fit, not anymore. I had struggled with balance and walking and memory that first year after I drowned, but I tended to think it had more to do with my body being in that frozen lake. I knew that it was true, but being referred to as “neurologically damaged” was disturbing.

It was like he had diagnosed my condition without even telling me. Applying his definitions to what I had gone through.

“It’s just that I don’t really see myself that way anymore. I mean, as a victim. And I really didn’t like his reference about me having hallucinations. Jesse is real, and so are my visions. It would be like me calling him blind because he can’t see the things that I can see.”

“Good point,” Kate said. “I agree with you a hundred percent. But he’s a doctor, Abby. It’s going to take a lot for him to admit that your visions are real when he can just call them side effects of your injury.”

The fire was dying. Kate got up and poked the logs around a little, sending some embers shooting up the chimney.

“Plus, he hasn’t been around here at all lately,” she said, sitting back down. “Other than the first visions you had all those years ago, he really doesn’t know anything about your life or what you’ve been able to do because of your abilities.”

I nodded.

“It’s a good thing for you to realize too that he isn’t so open-minded about those things,” she said. “That’s why I keep telling you to not get so caught up in him believing you about that vision you had of Nathaniel.”

I took a long sip of tea. It filled me with a feeling of warmth as it trickled down my throat.

“Did you see that he was planning on speaking at a conference here in Bend?” I said, suddenly remembering the “tour dates” page on the website.

“Really?” she said. “When?”

I opened the laptop again and found it.

“See, he’ll be over at St. Charles,” I said.

She looked over my shoulder and read the page. She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

“So that’s why he’s coming to Bend,” she said. “It’s a stop on his tour of hospitals in the Pacific Northwest. He must have had this planned for a while.”

We read over the page for another moment.

“It seems like the doc has found himself a new career,” she said. “That’s really great. I’m happy for him.”

“In the morning I’ll write and tell him I think it’s good,” I said. “It’s all good. He did say some really nice things about me.”