IN ROOM 33 (42 page)

Authors: EC Sheedy

BOOK: IN ROOM 33

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"Shush," she finally said. "I'm with you. I'm always with you."
I'd die for you if I could. Isn't that a kind of love? Or is it only the terror of being left behind?

He wheezed, the air making a scraping sound across his palate as he labored to pull in another breath.

How many did he have left?

How many breaths made an hour, a day, a life?

Oh, Milo, don't go. Please, please, don't leave me.

"I love you, too," she said, fighting a growing desperation. She would say the words. If she couldn't hold him, perhaps the words would.

A tear caught lamplight at the edge of his eye and glowed a golden course into his thinning brown hair. "When you read these, you'll hate me."

"Never! I could never hate you."

"You don't know..."He shook his head and lifted his hand from the letters resting on his chest "Back in the drawer. Until... after. When you're strong again. I didn't mean for it to be you, didn't want that. But I trust you. You won't hurt her. It was so long ago. So long. I tried to make it right... can't ever. God, Hannah, I'm sorry, so sorry." He swallowed hard, shuddered convulsively.

She didn't know what he was talking about But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered except his leaving. "Oh, Milo—" She wanted to console, but the words knotted in her throat Useless. There was no solace to be given, no promises to make. Even on the edge of death, Milo would see the missing truth. She owed him better.

"Please," he murmured, touching the letters. "The drawer."

She scarcely glanced at them as she did what he asked, returned quickly to his side. This time she sat on the bed and took his hand in both of her own. Cool.
Too cool.
Not the hand of the warmhearted man who'd come for her five years ago. Only bones under skin now. Kindling.

His fingers curled around hers, so tight they hurt. "Read yours first. Alone." He raised his death-glazed eyes to hers. "I wanted you to be safe, I never thought I'd go before—"

"Be still, Milo. It's all right. Everything will be all right." Impotent words, useless against the dread webbing tighter in her belly, the vile disease in his lungs.

"Try to forgive me... to understand?"

"I'll forgive you anything. You know that. You're more to me than life and—" Her voice broke. "Nothing you could say, or write, will ever change that."

He rolled his head, the subtle negative thick with resignation and disbelief. "I've left you everything—" He stiffened, grimaced, and clenched his eyelids closed.

Hannah knew the enemy in his body had renewed its merciless assault. She gripped his hand and held tight, leaning to kiss his knuckles. So little comfort for the life he'd given her. It seemed forever before he exhaled and the tension in his body eased.

How many breaths?

"You'll take care of Mother? Tell her I love her and that I left... peacefully." He managed a faint smile.

"I will."

"And yourself. Take care of yourself. Promise me that."

She nodded, swallowed against the building pressure to weep.

"Good." He moved his thumb over the back of her hand. "If I could," he murmured, "I'd say hello to Will and... little Christopher. Tell them how you miss them. How much you love them."

His soft words were a warm hand on her heart; the moan was hers. It was too cruel, this life. First love, then mistakes and unthinkable losses, leaving nothing but broken souls adrift in a bleak and empty wake. Alone. Always alone. And now Milo. She buried her head near his shoulder and wept.

He reached for her, used his waning strength to nudge her head onto his shoulder. "Lie with me, Hannah," he whispered.

She stretched out beside him, pressed her cheek to his, her tears heating their skin. He caressed her hair, soothed her, the almost dead consoling the not alive.

"Warm. So warm." He continued to stroke her hair, his fingers stopping at her nape. "A woman in my arms." He kissed her forehead softly. "My first woman."

With that he ran out of breaths, his last wafting over her cheek on an endless sigh.

A Perfect Evil

EC Sheedy

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EC Sheedy who also writes as Carole Dean, lives in British Columbia. She is an island dweller—and loves it. Every morning she wakes to the ever changing sound and colors of the ocean outside her window. Whatever its mood, summer calm or winter storm, she finds it the perfect background for writing romance. She lives with her husband of many years and a Rhodesian Ridgeback who has convinced them both he is a person in dog's clothing.