As the Crow Flies, page 38
Even after all these years she’d have recognized that goofy, tongue-lolling smile anywhere. “Arthur? Is that you?”
Sam! he seemed to say. He did a wild tap dance, spun in happy circles, but when Samantha tried to touch him, he dodged her.
He rushed to Alley. Side by side, nose to tail, they greeted each other. Then their bodies stiffened, heads held high, each waiting for the other to make the next move. Alley crouched. Arthur crouched, a playful catch-me-if-you-can gleam of mischief in his smoky eyes. He dodged her as he had Samantha, broke into a full run, and disappeared in the mist. Alley took off in pursuit.
Samantha felt like she was on a stage, backstage, trying to find her way out from behind a big curtain. She parted the fog, pushed her way through until the sun lit a brilliant and unexpected landscape. She’d never been able to see this far before. For miles and miles stretched endless expanses, lush and green, rolling hills dotted with what looked like cottages and blooming gardens in an array of unearthly colors. And on the horizon, where the green met the blue of the sky, a herd of white horses galloped by. But it all looked so far away.
She took a step. That one step moved her ten steps, and she fell forward on her hands, wobbly with a sense of motion sickness. Parts of her body felt inflated with helium, no longer subject to gravity. Other parts felt filled with lead. Her perspective was off, too, her vision as unreliable as her motor skills. Like the telescopic lens of a camera, her eyes zoomed in and out with each step her feet took. Did she even have eyes and feet anymore, or was she simply experiencing memories of having them?
Another unsteady step. The landscape wavered and shifted, and suddenly she was standing in the middle of a flower garden that had seemed far away a moment ago. The seasons appeared confused as well. Spring-blooming wisteria, lilacs and tulips blossomed along with summer sunflowers and fall-loving asters and mums, golden rod and yuletide camellia. How strange this beauty. A beauty beyond beauty. The splendid sublime. She wished Gwen were here to see it all. But then, no, Samantha hadn’t wanted Gwen to come here; she’d made the ultimate sacrifice and come in her place, hadn’t she?
Out of nowhere, a woman in a loose white dress, her golden-brown hair pulled back, stood waist-high in the flowers. Without really seeing her face, Samantha knew it was her mother. She stared at her profile, steadying herself and trying to focus.
“Mom?”
Her mother looked at her, seemingly unfazed by her presence, and seeing those hazel eyes she hadn’t seen in fifteen years made Samantha want to cry. She was beautiful, the way she was before she’d gotten sick and lost her hair. Even more beautiful than that, really. She looked like the young mother she remembered as a child. Samantha had often thought what it might be like to meet a loved one in the afterlife, and it wasn’t the emotional encounter she’d imagined.
Her mother didn’t seem especially surprised or excited to see her. She was more focused on her flowers. Samantha watched as she shook her head in displeasure, her lips tightening into a thin line. “I just don’t know about these hollyhocks, Sam. How do they look to you?”
Samantha was the wrong person to ask. She couldn’t even see straight. “They look great,” she squeaked. This was definitely not the kind of tear-jerking reunion she’d expected. It felt too ordinary, like just another day during her college years, when she’d stop by after classes to help out in the greenhouses. Even Arthur had been more excited to see her after all these years.
“Am I dead, Mom?”
“Now these red velvet dahlias here…spectacular, aren’t they? I’m very proud of them. I’m thinking of surprising Henry and his hives by planting some around the apiary—particularly these red velvets. They’re bee magnets, you know.” Just then a bumblebee landed in the yellow center of the velvety red petals, and her mother laughed. “See what I mean?”
“Mom? Am I dead?”
She didn’t answer. She pointed instead to two dark specks moving across the hills at high speed. “Look at Arthur go! And look at that—who does he have with him?”
Samantha shielded her eyes from the sun, trying to track the two racing dots. How her mother could even tell they were dogs she didn’t know. Samantha would have needed a telescope to make out the animals. Up over one slope and down another the dots sped. They had to be a mile away. But in the blink of an eye they were right there, Arthur and Alley, charging full speed and ready to plow right through her mother’s flowers. Samantha cringed as they trampled the blooms, but her mother only laughed. The flowers sprang right back up, and all was well.
“And who do we have here?” her mother asked Arthur.
“Alley,” Samantha answered. “Her name is Alley.”
“Alley…” Her mother smiled. “She must be new.”
“Yes. She came with me. She belongs to Gwen, a woman I…I once knew,” she said, forcing those awful words past the despair of knowing she’d never be present with Gwen again.
“Gwen…yes, the woman you know,” her mother said, as if correcting her. “That makes me happy. And your brother…he’s going to be a father…”
“Where’d you hear that?”
She didn’t answer. She was too busy smiling at the dogs. “Alley, what a sweetheart you are.” She bent over, kissed her head, and laughed as Alley licked her face. “Well, Arthur,” she said with a pleasant and satisfied sigh, “I do believe you’ve got yourself a girlfriend. A match made in heaven, I’d say.” She giggled to herself as though realizing the pun she’d just made. An inside joke, Samantha presumed.
Her mother turned away then and left her standing there. The dogs followed. “I think I’ll head up to the hills to check on those olive trees,” she said. Samantha made a move to follow, but her legs wouldn’t cooperate, and she fell forward again.
“Mom, wait! Help me. I don’t know where to go.”
“You should go back, Sam,” her mother said in a casual, singsong voice and without even looking back.
“Can I? Can I go back?”
“You should. Before it gets too dark.”
But it wasn’t dark. It felt like only morning. The day couldn’t have been brighter. In a split second her mother and the dogs had traveled several acres, and Samantha feared being left alone in this fragile, destabilized state in which she found herself. She wished she had something to hold on to. Her mother’s arm would have been nice. She made an attempt to follow before she lost sight of them, but one careful step forward brought her mother swiftly back again. Her face loomed above Samantha, gigantic, larger than life, her countenance threatening. “I SAID, IT’S GETTING DARK,” her voice boomed. “YOU BETTER GO BACK NOW!”
The shock of it rattled Samantha, and she obeyed the command without question. She turned in fear, not knowing if her legs or even her eyes could find their way and take her back to the mist. But when she turned, that glistening gray curtain was right there, blackening. She felt as though she were on top of the world looking down at the night sky dappled with stars. Afraid she’d trip and fall if she tried to walk, she lunged, hurling herself into the inky fog. Something on the other side sucked her in and pulled her back through that thread in time.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Samantha awoke to the steady beeping of monitors and the sensation of someone’s warm hand in hers. Her eyes fluttered open just long enough to see that she was in a hospital room and that Gwen was sitting in a chair beside the bed. The image was blurred, but she didn’t need to see Gwen to know it was her. Her throat was dry and it was hard to speak, but she managed a husky whisper as she closed her eyes and squeezed Gwen’s hand. “Mmm…I’d recognize that perfume anywhere.”
“Sam? Oh, Sam, you’re back!” Gwen was up in a flash, still holding her hand. She leaned across her, reaching to push the button for a nurse.
“Wait. Not yet,” Samantha said. Her mouth was parched, her head was banging, and she couldn’t bend her left leg. “How much damage did I do?”
“Don’t try to sit up, darling.” Gwen took a piece of crushed ice from a cup and pushed it between Samantha’s lips. “You have a slight concussion, a couple of stitches in your head…and your leg is wrapped—sutures inside and out. You cut the popliteal artery behind your knee. You almost,” she started to choke up, “almost bled to death.”
“More ice, please,” Sam said. Gwen gave her another piece. She sucked on it and spoke again. “I thought that mirror broke your arm.”
“I’m fine, just bruised. It’s nice that those mirrors bend,” She attempted to laugh but looked as if she might break down.
“How many days have I been out?”
“Only a few hours, but…oh, God, Sam…I thought I’d lost you,” She grabbed a tissue and wiped her eyes. “Let me get a doctor. I’ll be right back.”
“Just wait a minute.” Samantha reached for her wrist as she turned to leave and held her there. “I went somewhere, Gwen.”
“I know…I know you did. I saw you walking with Alley…and I thought you were gone…for good.”
“I was with my mother…and my dog, Arthur…in a beautiful place. Alley went there with me, too.”
“And…?” Gwen hesitated, as though afraid to ask the question. “Where is she now?”
Sam shook her head on the pillow. “She didn’t come back with me.”
“Good.” Gwen nodded, sighed in relief, and held a tissue to her mouth. “That’s good.”
“Last I saw her she was running off with Arthur and my mother…to check on some olive trees.”
“Olive trees?”
“Yeah.” Sam smiled and gestured at the cup of ice again. “I know it sounds crazy. You probably think I was just dreaming, but—”
“I believe you, darling. If anyone would believe you, it’s me. And I want to hear everything…but not until the doctors see you and you’ve rested, okay?” Gwen was standing over her now, and she brushed the hair off Samantha’s forehead and gently kissed it. “I love you, Sam…so much,” she said, and turned away, sniffling.
“You didn’t call my family, did you?” Sam asked as Gwen left the room.
“Of course we did. Liz did.”
“God, she didn’t have to do that. I don’t want my father to worry, and Jason doesn’t need to come.”
“Jason’s here. He’s downstairs getting coffee with Liz and Isabel and your sister-in-law.”
“Oh, geez…they came all the way here from the city? Where am I, anyway?”
“Pittsfield Medical Center. About twenty miles from the house.”
“I wish Liz hadn’t called. I know they’re busy with work and—”
“Stop. It’s all taken care of. I’m putting them up at the house for the night…or for as long as they want to stay.”
Just as Gwen headed out, her brother and sister in-law appeared in the doorway. Jason was tall like Sam, even taller, and looked just like her. They might even have passed for twins if he weren’t eight years younger. And Lisa looked nothing like Liz. She was a younger version of her mother, Gina.
Jason came up to the bed. “Nice stunt you pulled there, sis,” he said jokingly. He always masked his emotions with humor, but Samantha could tell he was beside himself. “Next time you get an urge to do a wheelie and flip your car, fasten your seat belt first.”
“Did you call Dad?”
“Not yet. We didn’t know what to tell him. I didn’t want him jumping on a plane or having a heart attack until we knew if you were…” He rubbed his face and started again. “If you were going to be okay.”
“I saw Mom,” she said.
Jason patted her hand. “That’s nice.”
Samantha knew he was placating her, humoring her concussion. If she described her near-death experience, if she told him Lisa was pregnant, he’d only attribute it all to a loss of blood and a hit to the head, so why spoil the surprise of impending fatherhood? “Listen,” she said. “Please don’t worry Dad. I’ll be all right. Let me call him myself. Maybe tomorrow, okay?”
He nodded as Isabel and Liz walked in. And then in came Rosa, the last person she expected to see. Everyone was beyond relieved to see her conscious and talking. Isabel put her hands together and shut her eyes as if in silent prayer. Rosa clutched her chest as if, deep down, she actually cared. A little. She walked over with a purse dangling from her elbow and that don’t-say-I-didn’t-warn-you look in her eyes and waggled a finger in Samantha’s face. “Nobody ever listens to me. You two are both lucky to be alive…and I’m glad you are,” she added with a frown. She paused then, as if trying to read the air, then patted Sam’s good leg. “It’s gone, the espíritu. We’ll all be okay now.”
Jason and Lisa both furrowed their bow and exchanged questioning looks, but before they could ask anything, two doctors came in and asked them all to leave the room.
Liz was the last to go. She came over, and Samantha could tell she’d been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy. So was her nose. “You look like crap,” Samantha teased her.
“Ya think? And you know I hate looking like crap, especially when it’s all your fault. And by the way, you look ten times worse than me.” The two doctors cleared their throats behind her. Liz smiled back at them, held up a finger, then bent down and put her lips to Sam’s ear. “You’re the only out-law I have,” she sweetly whispered. “If you ever pull something like this again, I’ll beat the fucking shit out of you. Stick to the ghosts in your novels and leave the real ones alone. Understood?”
Sam wanted to laugh, but her scalp hurt too much. “Understood.”
“Oh, one more thing,” Liz said before taking her lips away. “I love you to the moon and back. Never forget it.”
Samantha was moved out of ICU that night, and everyone went back to the house to eat and get some sleep. Except Gwen. She went out, brought dinner back for the two of them, and stayed by Sam’s side all night. The more brain activity, the more stimulation and social engagement the better, she’d evidently decided. She listened to Sam recount her experience, watched her sleep on and off, engaged her with the story of how Bertha had saved her life yet again.
“I wasn’t of much use after I saw your spirit walking away with Alley. I was sure you were dead and…they tell me I fainted.” Her voice caught in her throat, and Sam stroked her arm. “If Bertha hadn’t gone and got the girls, and if Rosa hadn’t responded as fast as she did, you would have bled to death, Sam.” Gwen sniffled and grabbed a tissue from the box. “And can you believe Isabel, of all people, saw you and Alley, too?” She laughed and cried at the same time. “I guess falling in love has opened her to a new level of spiritual awareness.”
“It’s amazing what sex can do, huh?” Sam said, and they both laughed.
Gwen sighed and blew her nose. “Anyway, Liz called 911, Rosa ran down with a hammer and the sash from her bathrobe. She and the girls were able to break a window, use the sash as a tourniquet, and keep pressure on that leg. Those extra minutes made all the difference. The doctors said so.”
“I owe Rosa an apology. And a million thanks. But considering we’re not family, I’m surprised the doctors discussed anything with you before my brother got here.”
“Oh, we discussed everything all right. I told them I was your wife.”
“Ah. I kind of like the sound of that.” Sam grinned. “That was good thinking. Thanks for lying. I may be obliged to make an honest woman out of you.”
Gwen laughed and slowly shook her head, as if amazed that Samantha was alive and here with her. “Oh, Sam…it’s so good to have you back.”
“So Bertha one-upped me and saved my life a second time, huh? She’s incredible. And so smart. I love that darn crow. And don’t tell her I feel this way, but I really hate her not living with me.”
“That crow loves you, too, and she’s as torn as you, Sam. She loves it here, loves that she’s found a mate and a good bird’s life, but she absolutely hates it when you go.” Gwen gazed into her eyes, and Samantha saw the flood of emotion in them. “Maybe one day you won’t.”
“Are you proposing?”
“I’d like to propose a lot of things. But let’s wait and see how well that leg heals. Before I make any commitments I need to make sure you can dance and keep up with an older woman.”
Sam laughed. “Don’t you worry, sweetheart. And don’t ever underestimate me.”
Gwen smiled. “Meanwhile, I have some good crow gossip to tell you,” she said, “if you think this is a good time to break some news.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, Bertha and her mate have a nest in one of the locust trees.”
“Really?” Sam felt as excited as an expectant grandparent. “Bertha’s going to be a mother?”
“Not exactly.” Gwen hesitated. “More like a father.”
“A father? Are you sure?”
“I witnessed the dirty deed, and all I can say is that Bertha was…well…on top.”
Sam frowned. “Bertha’s a boy? Can that be?”
“Sam, you’ve had her for a few years. Female birds lay eggs from time to time, even without a male to fertilize them. Has Bertha ever laid an egg?”
Sam stared her blankly, then started heaving with quiet laughter. “Ouch, oh, that hurts!” She winced, holding an arm to her ribs, a hand to her head, but she still couldn’t stop laughing.
Gwen laughed along with her. “I’m glad you’re taking the news so well.”
“He’ll always be Bertha to me. And no, I’m not changing his name.”
“I was thinking we really should give Bertha’s mate a name…and start coming up with some baby names. At least one, if not two or three.”
“Well, being that Bertha was named after a hurricane, I’d like to keep with that tradition.”
“Hmm…I like that. We’ll have to give it some thought.”
* * *
Another day, another visit from the neurologist and surgeon, and Sam was ready for discharge. Gwen was there for it all. Jason and Lisa, who were wonderful and expressed their gratitude, had returned home, and Rosa had called her at the hospital to say she would prepare dinner before leaving for the day. Gwen received a text from Isabel just then, letting her know that she and Liz would be at the house to get Sam settled in and join them for dinner.
