Resurrecting Harry (10 page)

The will to fight for Bess wasn’t the problem. He’d go to the ends of the world for her. He just didn’t have a clue how to turn her head.  They’d come together so easily the first time, there was no chase. No great pursuit. Only love. He didn’t need the desire; he needed a lesson in chivalry.

Erich stepped away from Jaden and continued walking through the thick fog, feeling it cling to him as if it — and he — were real and not just an illusion. “My arms ache to hold her.”

“Then why don’t you claim her?”

Erich’s fingers curled to a tight fist. Jaden knew what he faced, but prodded at him anyway. “She can’t see the man inside, because she’s haunted by the ghost. I didn’t want to believe you, but I caused that pain.”

“Grief ravages the heart and mind, tainting everything it touches. For some its stay is short, forced away by memories of love and joy. For others, grief takes root and strangles out anything positive.”

“The same could be said for anger.” The answer to grief would be to soothe her, but she felt so much more. Heartbroken from loss, yes, but burning with rage for the choices he’d made. How could he reconcile the two? She now believed Harry had picked fame over her and manipulated the truth to substantiate her claims, like saying he refused a doctor’s care because of the fans.

“You knew you were sick.” A moral compass, Jaden spoke the simple truth.

“I did.”

“You knew it was serious.”

“Not deathly!” And that was fact. Wasn’t it? Erich tried to access the memories, but for once, his recollection of the past was as murky and clouded as the mist that surrounded them.

“Harry’s death resulted from ignoring the cries his body made. Now you, Erich, are faced with the same dilemma. You can choose for Bess or choose for Harry, but not both.”

Acid bubbled in his stomach, and his shoulders constricted. Right. Wrong. Repercussions. Consequences. “I already chose Bess. That’s why I’m here!”

“I’m not interested in the words of someone who sells illusions. I’m interested in the actions of a man who puts others before himself.”

In an instant, the cold mist, the stony pier and the lighthouse vanished. Erich stared at the wall opposite his bed in the Laurel Canyon bedroom. He could hear a blood curdling scream in the distance. It sounded like some poor bastard was being ripped apart. The agonizing and sharp tones pierced his ears, slowly growing louder, until he realized it was coming from his mouth and the depths of his gut.

The pain ripped through his abdomen, debilitating and obliterating. His hands went to cradle his stomach, but with the touch a deep, burning pain flashed through him. His back arched, and his skull smacked the headboard.

More agony. Too much to bear.

Control slipped away with the tears cascading down his cheeks unchecked. His hands curled up in the twisted sheets, and he prayed for some sort of relief.

The door to the room flung open, and Bess rushed to his side. Kneeling on the bed, she ran her cool hand over his forehead. Her normally porcelain skin was ghost-white, and he wondered if it was a mirror-reflection. Had Jaden placed him on death’s door?

“Heavens, you’re burning up.”

“The…it…hurts...” His body trembled as if he were in an ice bath instead of the bed, but he knew the chills were a delusion of the fever.

“Erich, shhhh, lay back. I’m calling Joseph. No arguments.”

She wrapped her arms under his neck and leg and struggled to lay him back down. Something inside him lurched. Despite the pain, her touch soothed him. He noticed her hair, freed from its daily binds and hanging in dark curls around her shoulder. He regretted that he hadn’t felt the softness of those curls against the palm of his hand or his chest once more.

As she swept from the room, the pain grew, dragging another scream from him. He gritted his teeth and tried to control the agony with slow, deep breaths.

You bastard, you promised me thirty days. Instead you’re going to make her live through this again.

He waited for an answer he knew Jaden wouldn’t deliver. His ominous warning against stepping on the wrong path echoed over and over. This journey was about choices. In order to save Bess, he’d have to make the right ones. Did that mean if he let her call the doctor, all would be fine?  It didn’t matter. In Bess’s eyes he saw her fear and memories of Harry. She was taking control. History wouldn’t repeat itself on her watch.

Bess scurried into the room, placing the basin on the nightstand. Her hands swirled in the water, and ice clanked against the bowl’s metal sides. Lowering herself to the side of the bed, she placed the cloth to his head. The shivers raking his body intensified. “Joseph is on his way.”

“Thank you…for helping.” His teeth chattered around the words. He pushed his hand to her knee. The soft satin against his hand comforted him almost as much as her touch to his flesh.

“What am I going to do? Let you die in this bed?”

Real concern intermingled with the lines of passing time on her face. She refreshed the towel, and then returned it his forehead. “Forgive me, Mr. Welch, but if I’m going to control the fever, I need to get these blankets off of you.”

Mr. Welch?
Were they back to formalities or was she establishing distance?

She let the quilt pile around his feet, exposing the soaking wet boxers and thin tank top that clung to his flesh. Her eyes caressed their way up his body. Or he was just delirious from fever.  Did she feel something more than concern for a fellow being?

That was too much to wish for, but Erich gripped on to hope. He may have started this journey believing a single day in her presence would satisfy his longing, but the thought of leaving her again, knowing the pain Harry’s death had caused, hurt more than any surgical wound.

She crossed the room and flipped on the window fan. Another chill crawled up his spine, lifting him off the bed in a wave. He reached for the blanket, but didn’t have enough strength to grasp it. His eyes fluttered closed as he forced her name through dry, cracked lips.

The return of the damp cloth to his forehead snapped him back to the moment.

“Don’t worry. I won’t leave you like this.” Her gentle touch brushed his cheek. “I do believe you’re cooler.”

“C-c-c-cold.” Erich gripped her forearm, believing she possessed the power to anchor him to this life.

“It’s the fever. Joseph is going to be here soon, and you’re going to be fine.” Her words echoed those she spoke while keeping vigil at Harry’s deathbed, right down to the rattled tone. She feared he would die. Erich knew reliving those last moments would only deepen her despair. Instead of saving Bess from her future, this would condemn her to it.

“Mrs. Houdini?”  The accented, male voice called from the bottom of the stairs.

She pulled herself from the bedside. “We’re upstairs, the room at the end of the hall.” Coming back to Erich, she said, “He will know what to do.”

Joseph might not be a traditional doctor, but he was a medical student. Harry’s will stirred inside, insisting he didn’t want anyone associated with Martin and his wife in this house. He may be a fine physician, but the bad blood clouded reason and tugged at Erich harder than logic. “D-d-d-on’t...want...any...d-d-doctor...”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not one. I’ve been expecting your call.”

Erich rolled his head to see the man with dark skin and silky, black hair.  “But you…work…at the…hospital…with Martin.”

“That doesn’t mean I agree with all of his practices.”

“That’s why I called you. I don’t want to offend Martin – especially since he’s been such a good friend – but I want a different outcome than Harry had, and I think you can provide that.”

Joseph tossed a tan canvas bag on the foot of the bed and moved up the opposite side that Bess hovered over. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Bess said, “He woke up screaming in pain and trembling. I think it’s his appendix.”

Placing his large, red-brown hands on either side of Erich’s face, Joseph looked deep in Erich’s eyes. “Thank you, Mrs. Houdini, but now let Mister—”

“Welch. Erich Welch,” she answered again.

Joseph shot her a daggered glance that must have hit its mark, because this time, she stepped back. He returned his focus to Erich, who opened his mouth even though he wasn’t sure how to answer.

The pain-ravaged words came from someone else. Jaden perhaps? “My stomach…Surgery…ten days ago…appendix.”

“Yet, you tried to tell me you were in perfectly fine health.” Joseph lifted the soaked, tank-top from Erich’s stomach and pulled away the bandage. He tried to steal a look, but the shirt blocked his view. Judging from the expression on Joseph’s face, the incision must have been as ugly as it was painful. “I’m going to need you to boil some water and bring me clean, white towels.”

“I’ll get them straight away. You can help him. Right?” Bess laid all hope at the faux doctor’s feet.

“I will do my best.”

Joseph scored points for not giving false expectations. If Erich’s agony was a gauge, he’d be in the grim reaper’s shadow soon. Another wave of pain coursed his body, this one more intense than the last. Erich tried to access Harry’s memories, compare this pain to what Harry experienced before dying.  How could he trust a mere medical student to save his life when a team of doctors had failed to save Harry? 

“It looks like you’ve ripped some stitches and the incision is infected.”

This guy was brilliant. Huh? Erich didn’t need medical instruction to know that. “I’ve been trying to care for it.”

Joseph’s eyes darted up to Bess. “Put the water on to boil and bring him a glass to drink. I need to clean up the incision and repair the stitches.”

“Maybe this...isn’t a...good idea.” Erich choked out the words in short gasps.

Bess was halfway out of the room, but his objection called her back. “You will do exactly what he says without one word of argument.”

“Please, Mrs. Houdini. If you want me to treat him, I need the items I asked for.” Joseph ignored the brewing struggle for power, and his words pushed her on her way. He then focused on the task-at-hand and began pulling objects from his bag, laying them out on the bed. “Now, Mr. Welch, do you want to tell me exactly what happened? Where did you have this surgery and why didn’t you stay in a hospital until you were fully recovered?”

Erich couldn’t tell Joseph the wound was the mark of a previous life or that three days earlier his spirit had been Jaden’s whipping boy. Expecting Jaden to take over again, he parted his lips, but no words came. So, he said the first thing that popped into his mind. “I couldn’t pay. I can’t pay.”

“Don’t worry about the expenses. I want all bills sent to me.” Bess spouted her orders as she rustled back into the room, setting the glass on the nightstand and handing a stack of towels across the bed.

Joseph took the offering, but mulled over her words as if he were a dog with a bone. “You can’t put a price on healing. Those who know how are obligated by the spirits to serve. The boiling water?”

“It’s coming.” Bess’s face mirrored the confusion bouncing around in Erich’s head. Did Joseph just say there would be no charge for his treatments? Noble, maybe, but not at all aligned with Martin’s philosophy on life.

“What I’m going to have to do is open up what’s left of these stitches and irrigate the wound. If you like, I can mix some herbs with the water that will help you manage the pain.”

Intense and stabbing, Erich’s agony took center stage. Everything else happening in the room annoyed, but didn’t distract. But what if he slipped and said something he shouldn’t while in an altered state? Jaden’s control would keep him from admitting to being Harry, but it wouldn’t stop him from saying something painful to Bess. He needed his wits about him to protect what was left of his relationship with her. “I don’t want any drugs.”

“But the pain.” Joseph said nothing more, as if the fragment were enough to change his mind.

Bess returned, carrying the cast iron pot by the handle with potholders. “You do what is necessary to make him well.” Her voice quivered and tears glossed her eyes. No doubt this experience had put her right back in that Detroit hospital several months earlier. At least this time, Joseph kept her busy with idle tasks. Erich suspected it was the real reason Joseph continued to send her up and down the steps. Back then, all she could do was sit and watch, with no control over the outcome. Was that why she held on to her guilt so tightly?

With her help, this scenario might have a happy ending. Maybe then she’d release the past. There was no other choice. If he died here on this bed, she’d have to relive the same horrible nightmare, the same way he had in purgatory. Erich gripped the sheets, fighting the agony and swearing to never give up the fight. For Bess’s sake, he’d do what was asked and fight the infection. “Do whatever you have to.”

Joseph opened a small, brown bottle and dumped its contents — a greenish-brown powder — on to a small piece of cheese cloth he’d pulled from his bag. He pulled the four corners up and tied them, before placing the formed ball into a clay mug and dipping it into the boiling water. Handing the concoction to Bess, he said, “Make sure he drinks it all. It will dull his pain without altering his mind.”

Taking another clay bowl from his bag, he filled it from the pot and immersed several metal instruments. He then opened a brown vial, closed his eyes, whispered a short phrase in his native tongue and dripped a few drops on top of his tools.

When the medicine man placed the first towel on his midsection, white-hot pain radiated out from the gaping slice in his abdomen, consuming every inch of him. Erich’s back arched, and he cried out.

“This is barbaric. Isn’t there anything more you can give him?” Bess’s voice cracked as she slid a trembling arm under his neck and took the towel from his forehead, refreshing it in the cold water, and replacing it with a gentle touch as if she knew her contact was magnified tenfold by the pain.

“Not here. If he wants anesthetic, he needs to go to the hospital.”

“No! No hospital. I’ll be all right.” Erich swallowed and focused on controlling his reactions for Bess’s peace of mind.

“I have some of Martin’s brandy. Would that help?” She asked. With Joseph’s nod, Bess fled the room again.

“No brandy. Just do what you must. Please.” Harry’s disdain for tainting his body with alcohol reverberated inside him, even if it would ease the pain. But as the moments passed, Erich wondered why he should hold Harry’s ideals steadfast. Would a few sips of brandy change all that much? Doctors had used alcohol medicinally for decades, trusted it to help their patients. Maybe he should trust others to do the right thing. Easing Bess’s fears was the least he could do after everything Harry had put her through.

Joseph lifted the towels, examined the flesh beneath and applied a clean layer to Erich’s flesh. “It is my hope the heat will not only soften the stitches, but draw out the infection and take the swelling down. If I were you, I’d take advantage of Mrs. Houdini’s offer and use these next few minutes to numb yourself.”

Erich rolled his head on the pillow and fought all the sensations pounding at him: the intense pain, the memories of dying, Harry’s life philosophy and Jaden’s ominous warning of wrong turns and missteps. “You could never understand what it’s like.”

Returning to the room, Bess poured from the silver flask into a glass tumbler. “I thought I made myself clear. You’re going to do exactly what Joseph tells you.”

Through vision blurred from by pain and tears, Erich focused on her face and found concern and pain mixed in equal proportions. He could fight to keep his body pure of alcohol and honor the man he once was, but comforting Bess was more important. He needed to act like a man and give her control. He nodded and tried to lift himself to accept the offered drink.

Bess supported his neck and placed the glass to his lips. “Not too fast. Just sip.”

Bitter blackberry fluid hit his tongue, and he struggled against the urge to cough it back up. Joseph poked at Erich’s wound. He was aware of the pain, but somehow Bess’s soft caress made everything else seem distant.

“Another sip, Erich.” The nurturing look in her eyes as she scanned his face, looking for signs of improvement, touched him in a way nothing else could. With her leaning in so close, he stared at the dark curls framing her cheek and remembered Jaden’s warnings about choices. Harry had made his based on pride and ego. Erich needed to carve a different path if he wanted a better outcome.