Waking Rose: A Fairy Tale Retold (57 page)

Now he was joking. He hoped she could see that. Smiling, he headed back to unconsciousness.

Hers

“When can I go and see him?” she asked her mother.

Mom, who hadn’t stopped smiling since she had first seen her again, said, tousling her hair, “Soon. I’ll ask the nurse. Oh, it’s so good to hear you talking.”

Rose put a hand to her throat to feel the stitches, where her breathing tube had been removed. “I’m glad to have my voice back too.”

“Not just your voice,” her mother said, her eyes bright.

Rose had to smile herself. It was awkward, because she kept forgetting how long it had been since she had been talking.

The nurse came in just then, and Rose repeated her question.

“As soon as the doctor says you can get up,” the nurse assured her. She was a friendly black girl, a few years older than Rose herself. “Is he your boyfriend?”

Rose had to smile at her mom. “Not exactly.”  She pondered. “Funny, on the one hand, it’s not as serious as that, and on the other hand, it’s far more serious.”

“I see,” the nurse said with a wink at them both. “Well, as far as I know, he hasn’t woken up yet. But he’s got some pretty heavy painkillers they’re giving him.”

“I’m glad,” Rose said. “I don’t really want to talk to him yet, but I do want to see him.”

When the nurse and her mother left, Rose gazed around the room at her personal garden—nearly a half-dozen flower arrangements, most of them roses of various colors. The cards were beside her bed—from the president of Mercy College, from Sacra Cor dorm, from Nanette, from Dr. Morris and family, from Professor Dawson and family, from the various branches of the Kovach family, from Bear and Blanche.

She picked up the vase from her bedside table and inhaled the fragrance of the three rich white roses from her godmothers, Sisters Maria, Carmen, and Therese. Their letter had made her cry with its poignancy. They had been interceding for her for so long, and at last it seemed the disaster that had hung over her had done its worst and passed by. She had already written back to them to thank them for their prayers, but that scarcely touched what they had really done for her, and for Fish.

Once again, she felt a mixture of sadness and pleasure at being alive once again. Life could go on, with its joys and pain coming piece by piece, sometimes together like a flood.

H
IS

At last, grudgingly, he consented to wake up. Not that he had much of a choice. Bodies were like that. All at once, they got an idea in them and then there was no stopping them. Reluctantly, he blinked at the world around him, decided he didn’t think much of it, and that he preferred to go away again. He closed his eyes.

Granted, there was nothing particularly attractive about the ICU ward of a hospital, even if you were in perfect health, which he was sure he wasn’t, to put it mildly. After taking in the tubes, the monitors, and the medical paraphernalia around him, he decided he would rather not know, and forced himself back to sleep. Fortunately, it came again easily.

From time to time, he was aware of people talking around him, but he wasn’t yet interested in other people. He was still dealing with the idea of still being alive, and that was enough of a stretch.

I suppose I’ll just have to get used to it,
he told himself.
Somehow. Again.

Hers

Finally seeing him, the first shock was his black hair, which she had been told was dyed. With his face so pale, it seemed doubly unnatural.

“He looked quite convincing as a tough,” Kateri had said to her, recounting the story in vivid detail on the second morning of her hospital stay. “Donna did a great job on him. We should have taken a picture.”

The second shock was, of course, the IV and tubes, which surrounded him. But she was glad he was there, still existing, still in the body.

She reached a careful hand in and around the tubes and stroked his bruised face with a finger. He twitched and frowned, but didn’t respond further. Smiling, she sighed and withdrew her hand. Further waiting.

You can’t hurry love

No, you just have to wait.

…I charge you

my daughters,

by the gazelles,

by the hinds of the field,

not to stir up my love,

nor rouse him

until he choose

to awake.

H
IS

At some point he became aware of a cool light above and to the right of him. For a long time, it failed to interest him, but at long last he tried to focus on it. He turned his head towards it, and opened his eyes. It was a dim, curtained light—sunlight?

Suddenly he became aware of the rest of his body, and the sensation wasn’t pleasant. While there wasn’t any sharp pain, he became aware that his feet and chest were almost completely immobile. Panicking suddenly, he tried to sit up and discovered his hands, at least, were free. Relieved, he sank back down into what he recognized must be a bed, and lifted up his hands to inspect them. The wrists were chafed, as he had expected, and there were several abrasions, but they moved easily and deftly. He massaged his wrists gratefully, happy that they at least seemed to be in working order. They had served him well.

As for his ankle—he glanced downwards and recognized the bulky shape of a cast. Well, that wasn’t unexpected. He sighed, and became aware of someone else in the room. He looked to the left, and saw a tall, dark-haired figure reading a book. The man looked up at him, and smiled. It was Bear. He looked as though he had aged, but he was smiling.

 “Well, little brother, you managed to shock everyone concerned by once again turning up alive.”

“Did I?” Fish asked, feeling his head, which he discovered, had a bandage on the back of it. “How did I manage that?”

“I’m not so sure. A compound fracture on your right ankle, severe bone trauma on the other, three broken ribs, first-degree burns, lung trauma from smoke inhalation, and a pretty good concussion. You’ve also got a black eye, multiple bruises, and quite a few abrasions. So what happened? You told me this would be a simple sting operation, and the worst that could happen to you was a hefty fine. But by the time I made it down, you were soaked with gasoline and being tossed into a blazing barn. You have a knack for making people extremely mad at you, don’t you?”

 Fish grinned at his brother’s teasing even as he grimaced at the list of his injuries. “Well, I can’t really blame them. I was, at that moment, a fairly large legal liability for them. They were already burning documents, and the thought occurred to them to add me to the pile.”

 “So I gathered,” Bear said. “Well, not all the timing was off. I went to Graceton Hall but on the way in, I was stopped by a blond girl who told me to get over to the barn and find you. So I drove out to the Brier’s old place and found the barn on fire. I saw them throwing you in and managed to jump in and get you out before that Prosser woman tackled me. Then she thought that maybe tackling me hadn’t been such a good idea, but I wasn’t about to let her go. So I kept after her until the police showed up a short time later. Which was good for you, as I wasn’t able to do much more for you except toss you on the grass and put out the flames by shoving you around.”

“Yes, I remember it wasn’t that pleasant getting rescued,” Fish winced at the memory. “If I weren’t so indebted to you for showing up in the first place, I very well might have sent you part of my doctor’s bill.” He noticed then that Bear’s hands were bandaged. “Sorry. That last joke was in bad taste, apparently.”

Bear chuckled, flexing his big hands. “Minor burns, nothing compared to your injuries. Don’t sweat it. I’m just glad you’re alive.”

“How is Rose?”  The normal talk with his brother had snapped him back fully into reality, and he remembered everything that had seemed disjointed or senseless for the past few days. Including Rose.

“She’s fine. That antidote—or whatever it was you got—worked: she survived the poisoning and she’s in the hospital right now for observation. Highly impatient and anxious to see you, I might add.”

He had to smile, even through the emotions that came over him abruptly. “I’d like to see her too,” he said, “when it’s time.”

“Look, I don’t want to tire you. The doctor said you really should be resting. She didn’t even want me to discuss your injuries with you, but I know you’d rather know.”

“That’s right,” he said, although he was exhausted again. “Well, I’m glad it worked. I wasn’t sure if it would. It’s like a miracle.”

“A lot of it happened because of you. I’m proud of you for taking it on.”

 “Well, I had to save Rose, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, I guess you did, didn’t you?” Bear looked at him with understanding. “Just like you had to be the one to investigate Father Raymond’s death. It was a calling, wasn’t it?”

“I guess so,” Fish murmured. “Didn’t Father say that was one of the tests of a genuine call from God—if you started to do it and circumstances yielded to you, the job was meant for you?”

“That’s right,” Bear said.

“But I still owe you my life—again.”  Fish tried to move himself, found he couldn’t and tried to relax into sleep again. “So why were you looking for me in the first place? Some wild intuition?”

“No,” And here Bear beamed with pleasure. “I just wanted to let you know that Benedict Michael had been born, and that Blanche wanted me to tell you he was named after you.”

“No kidding!” Fish stared, stupefied.

“Yep. Blanche and Ben are both doing fine. She can’t wait to come down and see you and Rose.”

“That’s terrific,” Fish blinked, and his eyelids refused stubbornly to remain open again.

“Well, I should let you get some rest. You need it.”

“Yeah,” Fish said, and was asleep almost instantly.

Hers

“Fish, are you still asleep?” she asked.

The young man who was still among the most frustrating persons she had ever known didn’t respond. Sighing, she put her hand on her chin and leaned over him, gazing at him.

He was looking better. His skin was a more normal color. The nurse had said he still hadn’t eaten anything, but probably would sometime today. If only they could get that awful black dye out of his hair. She missed his usual jumble of brown hair acutely.

Day. It was so good to see daylight. She still hadn’t tired of it—all the many shapes and colors, the sharp lines and fine details one could see when it was present. Now her eyes traveled slowly over his slightly altered profile and complexion—his nose seemed to be broken, and there was a dark bruise over his eye. Perhaps right now no one would describe him as handsome, except herself.

But then again, I am incorrigible
, she reminded herself.

She sighed deeply, and humming her usual tune, a bit forlornly, turned back to her room.

I keep waiting.

I keep on waiting.

But it’s not easy.

 No, it’s not easy.

But love will come
, she told herself.
I know he will come.

H
IS

He woke up next to the sound of muffled whispers all around him, and tensed unconsciously.

“You’ve done it now—you’ve woken him up,” Alex’s voice said.

Now he opened his eyes, blinking, and saw six faces looking at him. Donna, Kateri, James, Alex, Leroy, and Paul.

“Uh—hi,” Alex said. “How was your sleep?”

“I was enjoying it,” Fish said, swallowing his weary yawn.

“They only let us in here because we promised before God that we wouldn’t wake you,” Paul said.

“Foolish promise to make, if you couldn’t keep it,” Fish said. “Hi Donna, Hi Kateri.”

“Hello, Fish,” Kateri said, a broad smile on her face, coming forward and giving him a tender kiss on the cheek. She was wearing a long yellow dress with tiny blue flowers on it, her braids were wrapped with purple and blue thread, and she had a sunny, contented look on her face. She touched his cast gently. “How is your foot?”

 “That’s right, pick an injury, any injury, and ask me about it,” Fish tried to sit up a bit more. “I will be a walking conversation piece for months—once I get around to walking again. Where’s Rose?” 

“Also napping, actually,” Kateri said. “We didn’t wake
her
up.”

“We just wanted to see how you were recovering,” said Alex, who had some significant facial injuries of his own.

“It’s just as well you woke me up. I’ve been waiting for someone to tell me what happened at your end,” Fish said. “I see you guys all look a little worse for wear.”

Leroy made a face. “All my injuries came from being dragged down several flights of stairs while unconscious. My family’s thinking of suing the nurse. I actually managed to take out three guys without getting hurt beforehand.”

“Two guys,” Alex corrected him. “You actually didn’t get the third one out before you were stunned by the guard’s Taser gun.”

“I distinctly remember taking out three,” Leroy insisted.

James shook his head with a look to heaven. “Look, you two have been arguing about this for days. Why don’t we tell Ben everything that happened, in order?”

The group obediently sifted itself onto the two chairs in the room, Donna in one chair, Alex in the other. James sat on the floor in front of Donna, Leroy perched on an end table next to her, Paul leaned against the wall, and Kateri rather nonchalantly sat next to Alex and he held her hand in a way that Fish noted was surprisingly familiar. So...!

“All right, let’s hear the complete story,” he said, settling himself.