The Weird Travels of Aimee Schmidt: The Curse of the Gifted (46 page)

Finally, she drew a breath of life back into her oxygen deprived body. She stuck the key into the ignition and turned it. Aimee muttered, “Well, Aunt Lauren, I’m sorry, but I guess I need to raise your sister from the dead.”

Somehow her car found its way back to the interstate. The cell phone’s ring brought her out of her purple haze. She snatched it out of the console before it rolled to voice mail.

“Hello…” Aimee mumbled while she tried to keep her attention on the traffic flying past her.

“Hey,” his voice boomed through the receiver, “you didn’t call!”

“I’m sorry. I just saw Aunt Lauren off and got out of the parking garage.”

“Oh, okay.” He calmed a bit. “I guess I was worried something bad had happened when I didn’t hear from you.”

She continued to add to her lie. “Well, we got here a bit late, and Aunt Lauren was in a rush so she wouldn’t miss her flight, then I waited until she boarded before I left…”

“Hey, it’s all right. Now that I know you’re okay.”

Aimee sighed quietly, and then answered, “Yeah, I’m fine. Perfectly fine.”

“So, did your aunt get all of the juicy gossip she needed for her return trip?” Dylan asked with a snicker. Aimee could tell he was going to keep his promise and talk while she drove back to Medford. She was relieved, though. He would keep her focused on the drive, otherwise, no telling where she might land up. Her mind desperately wanted to wander back to her conversation with Aunt Lauren. She knew there would be time later for that.

As Aimee was driving into Eugene, she suddenly had to take a break. A pounding in her brain had surfaced in the past ten miles, and she needed to pee. Since their plans for lunch had been aborted, Aimee figured she was just hungry. Her pear had long since worn off.

“Dylan, I’m gonna stop by the store near James’s apartment, go to the restroom, and get something to snack on. I’ll call you back in a bit.”

“Okay. I’ll be waiting.”

A few minutes later the young man behind the checkout register repeated, “Hey, lady, you okay?”

Aimee looked up at him. She had phased out for a few seconds. She thought,
I must be hungrier than I realized.
She stuttered a bit before answering, “Uh…uh, yeah, I’m, uh, I’m okay. Sorry, just need to eat.”

She handed him a ten and took her bottled water and bag of trail mix, then held out her hand for her change. He counted it out, laid it in Aimee's palm, and smiled at her while she stuffed it into her pocket and started for the door. “Hey, your receipt,” he said, but she kept walking. She had to get into
her car before
it
happened; the long overdue “it”. The journey came on like an earthquake, sudden and
no warnings. Luckily, she made it to the car and got in before she left.

The black tunnel felt even colder than usual. Hell would feel like heaven compared to this torture. The frigid air ripped her breath away and encased frozen crystal pellets in her lungs. Aimee couldn’t scream out into the darkness for mercy. She just closed her eyes and prayed for the end, but not a final end, as she often begged for. No, Aimee had just been given a renewed reason to want to live; a reason to travel to all ends of the world and through all possible times until Aimee found the
missing person in her life - her mother. She was determined to see her again...
alive
!

The searing white light came so rapidly she didn’t have time to look before she landed. Aimee hit the black granite floor, and then rolled into the beige wall. She fell back on her butt and sat there dazed for a few minutes. A couple of voices sailed out of the nearby hall and floated towards her. They snapped her back into consciousness. It sounded like a man and a woman. Aimee swiftly pulled up and swiped at her nose. Wet crimson stained her fingers.

An empty waiting room separated her and the voices. She slipped in, dropped into one of the plush lounge chairs, and tried to blend into the emptiness. The voices came into her hall, then drifted away as the couple continued the opposite direction from her. Aimee leaned back and watched the two; a tall and slender man with long blonde hair and a shorter, slim woman, with strawberry blonde hair pulled up high in a ponytail, walking together side-by-side, totally engrossed in a conversation. Her
sixth sense told Aimee they were the key to her
mission.
She needed to see where they were going.

Like a penny ante sleuth on the tail of a cheating husband, Aimee trailed them keeping her distance so she wouldn’t be detected. A short, dark haired gentleman with a white lab coat and a stethoscope hanging around his neck, sauntered pass, nodded towards her, then suddenly snatched a second look before continuing down the hall. Aimee nodded and kept her eyes ahead on the couple in front of her, now gaining distance. A trickle of liquid reached her top lip. She wiped with the tissue she found
in the waiting room. It had more fresh blood on it.
That’s what the doctor musta been gawking at,
Aimee figured.

Aimee couldn’t see the couple’s faces, but their voices sounded like they were discussing something of dire importance. The man’s voice sounded distraught, almost on the edge of total despair. Perhaps a loved one was sick, or worse, dying. Finally after a few minutes of ambling swiftly through the sparsely filled halls, they came to an entry and pushed through one of the double doors. Aimee
looked at the sign on the side of the doors. It read
Nursery.
She poked open one of the doors
and with one eye peeked into the dimly lit hall. At the end of the hall was a large window with curtains pulled back. The couple stood looking into the room on the other side of the window. A nurse scurried around behind the glass. The couple was quiet for the first time since Aimee had started following them. She didn’t dare go through the doors into the hall so she kept the door cracked open just enough so she could hear.

Finally, the man spoke. His voice cracked as he started. “Jesus Christ…oh God…geez, Lauren. She is so incredibly beautiful…” Aimee heard him sniffle, and then silence. He started again, his voice now calmer. “I mean, thank God, she looks just like her mother, the most beautiful person I have ever seen.” Again there was a pause and Aimee heard the woman trying to console him.

“I know, Mike. I know. She is gorgeous. So tiny, but even now, it’s amazing how much she looks like Marie…”

Like someone had taken a knife and jabbed it straight into her chest, Aimee felt her heart being
ripped open. She doubled over and let go of the door. This wasn’t a random
mission
she had been sent
on. She had been sent back in time to her birth!

If that was her behind the glass partition, and her dad and Aunt Lauren looking at her, then this
had to be November 22, 1987, the day she was born. And, the day that her mother died.
Omigod,
Aimee suddenly thought,
somewhere in this hospital is my mother…dead…or…or…omigod, could she…could she be alive?!
And then in the next second it dawned on her. “Oooomigod, she’s the person
I was sent to help!” whispered Aimee.

Aimee took a couple deep gulps of fresh air and noticed the pain subsided. She raised back up and eased the door back open an inch. The curtains were pulled across the window. Her dad and Aunt Lauren were now sitting in a couple of chairs along the wall. He sat hung over his lap with his hands cradling his face to prop up his head. Aunt Lauren was sitting sideways with her back towards Aimee. She was patting her dad’s shoulder trying to comfort him.

Aimee strained to listen to their conversation. Finally, her dad’s muffled crying stopped and he spoke in a soft, but anxious voice.

“I don’t know, Lauren. It’s just not right. I know…” he paused, wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve, then continued. “I know she said this baby isn’t mine. And I can’t see any evidence of me, but that doesn’t matter. She is as much ours, Marie’s and mine, as James is.”

Aunt Lauren just listened and rubbed her dad’s shoulder slowly. He continued, his voice now stronger and steady. “Crap, Lauren, I don’t feel good about this. I mean, I love Marie so much. I don’t think I can live without her. I don’t care if she is…” he stopped again. Finally, the words slid out, “I
don’t care if she is
crazy
. I just don’t think I can lock her away like some mad animal.”

“Mike, listen to me. You don’t know what she is like. Marie’s been ill for years,” Aunt Lauren shared in a hushed, but convincing voice, “but this is the worse I have ever seen her. I mean she is completely delusional. All this nonsense about being a time traveler, and how she got pregnant by the man she met and fell in love with while on one of her…what does she call them?...” she paused for a second, then continued, “...uh, journeys, yeah that’s
the word.
Geez, Mike, she’s really lost it. I’m like you, though. I don’t want to see my sister locked
away, but what choice do we have? She needs help, and she can’t take care of that beautiful, little girl,” Aunt Lauren paused as she pointed towards the nursery window, then added, “not unless she gets well.”

Dad kept his head hung low shaking it. Finally he sat up, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and cleared his throat. He sounded defeated, drained of all life. “Uh…I…uh…” he sighed heavily, “maybe you’re right. That sweet, little baby needs me. James needs me, too. I guess I’ll sign the papers…” Aunt Lauren placed her hand over Dad’s hand and nodded. “But first…” Dad peered over at his sister-in-law, “…but first I want to see Marie.”

Her aunt grabbed her dad’s arm. “Mike, I don’t think that’s wise. You know how bad the doctor said she was after the delivery. She had completely flipped. They had to knock her out to keep her from tearing out the IV and running off with the baby. She was screaming about how the father was coming to take them away, and the medical staff was gonna kill them both, and…”

Dad suddenly interrupted, “I know, Lauren. I don’t need to hear it again. Just shut up...”

“Okay…okay. I’m sorry.” After a long moment of silence, Aunt Lauren said, “You know, Mike, Marie’s my favorite sister. I love her, too.”

“I know,” her dad answered emotionless.

“This isn’t easy for anyone. But…”

“But what?” her dad finally asked after Aunt Lauren failed to finish.

“But Marie won’t remember any of this. Never. This time I seriously doubt she will get better, and your children don’t need to know what happened. So, for the sake of that child…” Aunt Lauren cleared her throat, and then lowered her voice. Aimee pressed her ear as close to the opening as possible without falling through the doors. In a whisper, she heard Aunt Lauren say, “Marie just died.”

“Lauren, what are you saying?” Dad nervously asked and stared at Aunt Lauren with his eyebrows knitted together in a tight line.

“I think it would be…well, prudent…if your kids grow up…” she paused, cleared her throat, then finished, “…thinking their mother died today while she gave birth.”

“What the
fu…
?!”
Mike blurted out, then immediately began to jump to his feet.

“Shhh…shhhh…” Aunt Lauren butted in while she grabbed him by his forearm and pulled him back into his seat. She glanced around tensely, and then looked with narrowed eyes into Mike’s wide eyes. “It’s what’s best. No one but us knows yet about the birth. I’m sure Molly will agree to this. I know she will because she’s had to live with this nightmare for so long. You just don’t know what it’s been like. I think Momma died because she couldn’t take it anymore, and she just gave up instead of watching her child fall deeper and deeper into the darkness. And for once, it’s a blessing your parents are gone, and you’re an only child.”

Dad continued to shake his head. “I can’t…”

“Yes, you can,” Lauren commanded, “and you will!”

Aimee's dad looked up at Aunt Lauren. His face no longer resembled the young, handsome face captured in the black and white photo. He had aged a century. He studied his sister-in-law forever. Finally, he sighed wearily and nodded as he dropped his head down and stared at his feet. Aunt Lauren sighed, too, and then replied, “Good…”

“But,” her dad interrupted. Aunt Lauren snapped her eyes back to Dad’s face. “I want to see Marie before I agree to anything.”

“Mike, no,” Aunt Lauren pleaded.

“Not negotiable. I want to tell her good-bye before they take her away.”

“Okay. But wait until tomorrow at least. The doctor said they knocked her out. I imagine she is really gone right now. They want to move her as soon as she stabilizes.”

Her dad nodded once, then got up and walked back to the window. He stood silently peering into the dark, draped glass. Aunt Lauren raised up slowly and leaned against the wall staring into space. Aimee let the door slip from her fingers. Every cell in her body felt numb. She wanted to throw up at the same time she wanted to punch the wall, or Dad, or Aunt Lauren, or all three. But she didn’t have time to puke or vent. There wasn’t a second to waste. She had to find her mother and get her out of
here. The adrenaline quickly kicked in and she jumped into action.
Where to start,
Aimee thought looking around quickly for something to tell her where everything was in the hospital.
Information can tell me where Mom is.
She needed to find a Pink Lady.

Locating her mother’s room was simple. Aimee told the sweet, gray haired lady at the front desk she was Marie Schmidt’s sister, and she had to see Marie before she would sign the commitment papers. Within minutes, Aimee was racing to the surgical recovery floor where they had Mom hidden away. No one looked up when she entered the wing. All of the nurses had their heads stuck deep in their charts busily scribbling notes. Aimee floated by invisible.

Aimee stopped at room 428. A sign was plastered on the door -
No Visitors Allowed.
She
glanced back at the nurses’ station. Their heads were still buried in their paperwork. Stealthily, Aimee pushed open the door and slid through. The room was dark except for the dim light coming from around the corner. She leaned against the closed door and sucked in a massive breath. Every few seconds, a soft moan, then some imperceptible mumbling, came from the person lying in the bed. Like worms, Aimee’s legs wiggled, but she couldn’t wait. She had to move.