The Boarding House (39 page)

“Did you have a school picked out?”

“Yes, but I hadn’t enrolled. Daddy was controlling all that until I turned eighteen. I do know I will never live in that house again. It has nothing but bad memories. I’ll sell it and get a place of my own.”

“I think you can do anything you set your mind to. Anyone who is as focused as you are can do anything they want.”

“Are we through yet?”

He smiled. “We can be. Why?”

“I want to go write in my journal.”

“Then we’re done. I’ll call Charlie.”

“Thank you, Dr. Tyler. Thank you so much for the gift.”

“You’re welcome, Ellie. Happy writing.”

Memphis—Late March

Spring had come early to Memphis.
The tulip beds on the grounds around the hospital were starting to bloom. Ellie had watched the show from her window, from the first shoots of green leaves cutting through the earth to the thick fat buds. Now they were opening, coloring the bleak landscape in colors of bright reds and yellows. It made her miss seeing Momma’s flower beds come to life after a winter’s sleep. Back home there would be tulips and forsythia and even lilac already blooming around the house. It was strange to be homesick for part of her past and so ready to let go of the rest.

She’d already taken a big step in putting the past behind her. Legally, she was now Ellie Strobel. She’d written it on every page of her pink journal just for the pleasure of seeing it there.

Wyatt had reminded her only this morning that when she got to her new place, she could plant all the flowers she wanted, but Ellie wasn’t so sure. Flowers were a permanent thing, and she still didn’t know where life was going to take her.

But she hadn’t been feeling well and was in no mood to debate with Wyatt. She’d managed to eat breakfast, but a couple of hours later it had come back up. After that, stomach pains were added to the nausea. She’d spent most of the day in bed, even canceling her meeting with Dr. Tyler and opting to miss spending time at Luther’s window.

When they brought her lunch tray, she drank her iced tea and shoved food around on the plate, but was still unable to eat. She’d napped off and on throughout the afternoon while the pain in her stomach got worse.

By late evening, she was sitting up in bed and reading when they brought her dinner tray. “I don’t feel like eating,” she said.

The aide frowned. “You’re never sick,” she said. “As soon as I get these trays delivered, I’ll come back and check your temperature.”

But a small emergency a few minutes later derailed her intent and she went off duty later without remembering to check back in.

Night fell, bringing more pain with it. Ellie was in so much misery now that she could hardly think.

Cinnamon came in and sat down beside her. “Honey, are you still feeling bad?”

Ellie nodded and pulled the covers up over her shoulders.

“Want me to go get someone to come see about you?”

“No. Surely I’ll feel better soon.”

Cinnamon patted Ellie’s leg. “Is there anything I can do?”

“I’m just going to sleep.”

“Okay, but I’m here if you need me.”

Wyatt came in behind her. “What’s wrong with Ellie?”

“She said she doesn’t feel good and wants to sleep, which means we need to make ourselves scarce.”

Except for the faint wails of the crying baby, the room got quiet. Within a few minutes Ellie drifted into a fitful sleep filled with crazy dreams and old memories—memories that kept waking her in a state of panic, then dropping her off into limbo again.

Hours passed.

The pain in Ellie’s side had become so severe she was shaking, and the fever in her body so hot she’d thrown off the covers. The room was cold, but her pain and fever were rising. That’s when the hallucinations began.

The monster was coming. She could hear the shuffling sound of his steps against her carpet. The sounds morphed into voices out in the hall. There were sirens in her yard—loud ones—screaming, screaming, like the voices inside her head.

Momma face down on the bed. She’s not dead. See everyone, she’s not dead. Then Momma rolled over. Her face was purple and even though her eyes were slightly open, Ellie could see that she was no longer there.

All the tires were flat on her car and she was running, trying to get home before Daddy found out, but when she got home there was blood everywhere.

A light appeared above her head, but it wasn’t from the Jesus window. Someone was running a vacuum cleaner. Tell them to stop. She didn’t want to hear the noise.

Blood everywhere. Daddy moaning. Gunshots. The smell of gunpowder up my nose. Sirens in the yard again.

The look of horror on Doris’s face. Poor Doris.

Poor Ellie, the keeper of secrets.

Luther Dunn had been asleep
for nearly an hour when he suddenly opened his eyes. His skin was burning, his belly on fire.

Ellie!

He threw back the covers and left his room, unconcerned that he was naked.

A nurse on the night shift saw him running up the hall and called for help in a panic, certain he was having a psychotic episode. “Luther! Stop! You’re not wearing any clothes and you’re not supposed to be out of bed. What’s going on?”

“Ellie is sick. She needs a doctor or she’s going to die.”

“What?”

“Run, woman,” Luther cried, and took off down the hall to Ellie’s room, dragging her with him.

Once they reached Ellie’s room, the nurse was shocked by Ellie’s condition. When the nurse turned on the light, Ellie rolled over on the side of the bed and vomited. She was feverish and incoherent.

The flurry of activity on the floor increased tenfold as an ambulance was called and nurses came running. Someone wrapped Luther up in a bedsheet, then an aide took him back to his room. He went willingly, knowing he’d done what needed to be done.

By the time the paramedics arrived, Ellie had slipped into a state of unconsciousness. She never knew when they wheeled her out of her room on a gurney, or the frantic 2:00 a.m. ride to All Saints Hospital in Memphis. They wheeled her into ER in an unresponsive condition with a fever of 105. Shortly thereafter she was diagnosed with appendicitis and on her way to surgery.

The diagnosis took a deadly turn after they opened her up to find the appendix had already ruptured. After that, it was a race against time. A half hour into the surgery her blood pressure suddenly dropped, adding another measure of intensity to an already dire situation.

An anesthesiologist suddenly shouted. “We’re losing her.”

The doctor looked up at the dropping pressure just as she flatlined.

In that moment, Ellie Wayne was dead.

“I need a crash cart.”

Ellie felt light and empty
of every negative thing she’d ever endured. The field of daisies in which she stood was filled with butterflies and hummingbirds vying for the nectar, while the sun lit a path toward a large stand of trees, just like the ones above the creek behind her house.

Ellie pointed, laughing at a pair of hummingbirds that were dive-bombing each other for the rights to a single bloom. “Look, Wyatt. That’s you and me fighting over the last pancake.”

Wyatt moved up beside her and put an arm around her shoulder. “I love you, Ellie.”

She looked up, smiling. “I love you, too, Wyatt.”

Cinnamon came up behind her and handed her a handful of daisies. “From me to you with love,” she said.

“Thank you, but why so solemn? Look at this place! It’s beautiful. How can you not be happy here?”

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Wyatt said.

“What do you mean? You and Cinnamon are here. Why can’t I be here, too?”

“You’re dying, Ellie. They’re trying to bring you back to life but it’s not happening.”

All of a sudden the sun was gone and the sky was black. The wind began to whirl, tugging at their hair and clothing and pulling the petals from all the daisies until they spun in the air like snowflakes in a storm.

“Go back, Ellie. Go back,” Cinnamon said.

Ellie screamed at them, desperate to be heard against the rising wind. “We’ll all go back!”

Wyatt pushed her away. “We can’t. You’re not strong enough to take us back with you. If you don’t go now, we all die. You have to go back, Ellie. You have to live.”

The storm was within her now in a new and frightening way, ripping at what she’d been, but she wouldn’t give way.

“I don’t want to live without you. I can’t. I won’t.”

Wyatt and Cinnamon began to disappear. But even after she could no longer see them, she could still hear Wyatt’s voice, shouting at her, begging her to understand.

“Yes you can. Yes you will. Go back, Ellie. Go back, or Daddy will have won.”

A nurse looked up. “I’ve got a pulse.”

Someone muttered, “Thank God.”

The surgeon shifted back into gear. “Let’s get this finished, people.”

Aaron Tyler got to work
to find a note on his desk stating that Ellie Strobel wouldn’t be in for her session because she’d been taken to the hospital in the night.

Frowning, he picked up the phone and called the nurse’s desk. “This is Dr. Tyler. What happened to Ellie Strobel?”

“I just came on duty. Let me check, Dr. Tyler.”

Aaron waited a few moments, and then the nurse was back.

“She was taken by ambulance to All Saints around 2:00 a.m. It says here she was unconscious, with nausea and high fever. Oh. And one other notation here
 . . .
something about being alerted to her condition by Luther Dunn, although I’m not sure what that means.”

Aaron’s stomach knotted. “I think I do. Thank you.”

He hung up, then glanced at his calendar. Ellie had been his only session this morning. There was plenty of time for him to go check on her. Even though this did not fall under the auspices of his duty to a patient, he knew if he didn’t go, there would be no one but strangers seeing to her welfare. But before he went, he wanted to talk to Luther—if, of course, Luther was willing to talk to him.

He left his office and ran into Charlie on the way down the corridor. “Charlie, do you have a minute?”

“Yeah, sure Doc. What do you need?”

“Walk with me to Luther Dunn’s room. I need to ask him a couple of questions, but he doesn’t really know me, so I’d prefer you went along as a familiar face.”

“No problem. Is he in trouble?”

“No.”

“Good. I like the old Hippy. He doesn’t make waves, which is more than I can say for most of the patients in here.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s so.”

A couple of minutes later they were at his door.

Charlie knocked then poked his head in the door. Luther was sitting in a chair in front of the window with his back to the door.

“Hey Luther, it’s me. You have a visitor.”

There was no indication that he’d heard.

“Wait here for me,” Aaron said and went in. He walked around the chair where Luther was sitting to face him. “Luther, I’m Ellie’s doctor. I wanted to thank you for calling attention to her condition last night.”

“You’re in my light.”

Aaron jumped, then moved off to one side. “Sorry. I didn’t realize.”

Luther turned his head and looked straight into Aaron’s eyes. “They all died last night.”