15. Louise
15
LOUISE
Louise’s wet, muddy legs trembled as she entered the kitchen from the back porch. “Grandma?”
She crossed the space just as her grandmother walked in from the living room. “Oh,” she said, her expression changing from surprise to confusion. “You’re soaking wet.”
“It was raining.” The words felt distant in Louise’s ears.
Camille made a soft ticking noise. “And covered in mud. Why don’t you go up and take a hot shower and get on some dry clothes while I make dinner? Your mom will be here soon. And then we can all chat.” She took out a cutting board from one of the cabinets.
Louise couldn’t imagine going upstairs to shower, or eating dinner, or doing anything remotely normal.
Camille began to slice a tomato into thick, ruby-red pieces. But when she glanced over at Louise, her knife stopped midair. “What’s wrong?”
Louise’s throat tightened. “Peter.”
Camille set the knife down. “Did he head out?”
“He’s not going to be okay, is he?” Louise heard the question come out with a sob.
Camille froze. “How did you…?”
“There was a bear. Yesterday in the orchard. It was hurt.”
Camille searched Louise’s face. “I don’t understand.”
“I healed it,” Louise said, the words tumbling out. “But it still died.” She braced herself. “Is that going to happen to Peter?”
It hurt just to voice the question, as though simply saying the words held the awful power to make them true.
Camille looked down. When she looked back up, her eyes glistened. “No,” she said.
Louise wanted so desperately to believe her, but she had already been lied to enough.
Camille leaned across the island. “You have to trust me.”
Louise shook her head. “You said you were waiting for Mom, to tell me. Why wait, if he’s going to be okay?”
Camille put her hands on Louise’s shoulders. “I was. I am. But it’s not what you think.”
“If you bring someone back, the way I brought Peter back, is it permanent? Does it last?” It won’t endure . Louise took a deep shuddering breath. “Grandma, if you don’t tell me the truth now I will never forgive you. I’m not a child. I don’t need Mom here. You have to tell me.”
Camille released Louise’s shoulders. “No, honey, what you did, on its own, is not… It’s not permanent, it won’t endure…but, Louise, you have to understand something—”
“How much time?” Louise asked, cutting her grandmother off. All she could think of was Peter, the earnest look in his eyes when he told her he maybe loved her, the hurt in his features in the car, when she had run away from him, from the truth. Soon he could be gone, any second. “How much time?” she repeated.
“I don’t know,” Camille said, wringing her hands. “I never did what you did. I was taught it was a violation.”
The word violation landed on Louise with the force of a blow.
“I wanted to,” Camille choked out. “Of course there were times. In nursing school especially. Young people…”
“How much time?” Louise demanded a third time. She didn’t want to hear her grandmother’s stories, listen to her try to relate to Louise. It was irrelevant. All that mattered right now was Peter.
“It’s not exact,” Camille answered. “My mother said it had to do with the moon cycles. Usually at least a few days. Sometimes longer. For Peter, he’s otherwise healthy. But, please, there’s something I can do… I can’t explain it to you without Bobbie. It’s not fair to her, or you.”
She had to get back to Peter, to find him before he died. She had to tell him he was right, about everything, that she had been lying when she didn’t say it back, that she loved him too.
“Louise, it wasn’t supposed to go like this. There are other factors here. Things you have to understand. Peter is going to be okay. I promise. Just give me more time to explain it. Wait until your mom can get here.”
Louise grabbed the key to her grandmother’s truck and walked out onto the porch, ignoring her grandmother’s pleas to come back. She slammed the truck door shut, shoved the key in the ignition, and with a roar of the engine and slosh of mud, she drove off.
As she flew down the driveway, the sky overhead was almost violent with explosions of crimson and purple. The mountains beneath were a dark, glinting gray. The land felt suddenly menacing, all hard edges where before there was softness.
She hit the brakes hard at the farm stand. Peter’s car was still there. He hadn’t left.
She barely saw the road in front of her, her eyes blurred from tears, but she managed to park on the side of the road and sprint toward Peter’s car, mud kicking up from where her feet hit the road.
Peter was out of the car before she could reach it. She threw herself against him as he wrapped his arms around her.
“You didn’t leave,” she choked out. She clung to his body, the solidity of it. She couldn’t believe that he would be gone again, in days, or hours even. It was impossible.
“I couldn’t. I just sat there. I’m such an idiot. I should never have said any of that.”
Louise’s chest heaved with a sob. How could she tell him? How could she ever explain what was about to happen?
“Louise…” Car lights swept over them, and he shielded his eyes from the harsh glare of high beams.
“That must be my mom,” Louise said. She felt an illogical relief, like her mother could fix all of it.
But as she squinted into the bright headlights, a man lumbered out of the car and toward them. At first she didn’t recognize him, still adjusting to the light. But when he was a few feet away, she saw it was Jake Henley.
“You know why I’m here,” Jake said without preamble, his eyes bloodshot.
Every muscle in her body went rigid. She thought of Caroline’s face on the trail after she healed Peter’s knee, and she knew instantly that she must have told him. Of course, she’d told him. “I don’t…”
Peter’s eyes moved back and forth between them. “Sorry, who are you?”
“You must be the kid from the trail,” Jake mumbled, tripping slightly as he took a step. “Caroline told me what happened. How one minute you couldn’t even move your ankle. And the next you were completely fine. Strange, isn’t it?”
Peter stepped forward, placing his body between her and Jake.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Henley,” Louise pleaded. She couldn’t tell him he was wrong, that she couldn’t save Sarah. She couldn’t let Peter hear those words, that she was a healer, that a life brought back from death or near death couldn’t endure. She couldn’t bear for him to find out that way, in a parking lot with a stranger.
Jake held her eyes. And she saw it reflected back at her, the truth about her healing abilities, about her family. “I thought it was crazy too, at first, that Caroline was making it up. But why would she lie about something like that?” He stared past Louise, up toward the orchard. “And then I thought about the stories. About your family. I always thought the people who claimed there was some kind of magic were just old country people with nothing better to do, rambling about your great-grandmother, this French healer…”
Peter looked at Louise, comprehension dawning.
“Sarah always says that nothing makes her feel better than when Camille is there,” Jake continued. “That it’s the only time she’s not in pain. And why, you know? Why would she be any different than the other nurses?”
“We have to go.” Louise’s mouth was so dry she wasn’t sure she even spoke the words. She knew what was coming, what he was going to ask of her. But she couldn’t save Sarah. The same way she couldn’t save Peter.
“I’m sorry,” Jake slurred. “I don’t want any trouble. This won’t take more than a few minutes. But I have to insist. You need to come with me first.”
“I can’t,” Louise said. “Please know that I can’t. I can’t do anything.” Time was ticking away. She needed to be alone with Peter.
Peter made a noise of protest as Jake went around him and grabbed her arm. She was suddenly aware of how tall he was, his body towering over her, drowning out the sky.
“Let go of her.”
“I’m not going to hurt her. I just need her to come with me for a few minutes.” Jake loosened his grip. “She’s my daughter’s friend. I just need her to see my wife. To…to help her.” His arm shook slightly as he let go of Louise and he backed away.
Louise glanced toward the house. “My grandmother. She can help. Please. Ask her instead.”
Jake shook his head. “She won’t. She told me I shouldn’t bother getting Sarah seen at Duke like I’ve been trying. Told me I need to accept this all.”
Louise kept her eyes on the front porch, as though willing her grandmother to appear, to guide her, the way she had at Sarah’s house.
“She’s in so much pain,” Jake continued. “Please. Can you at least try?”
Louise looked into his eyes, two bottomless wells of grief. She nodded, before she could stop herself.
“You don’t need to go anywhere with him,” Peter said into her ear.
“I know.” It all raged like a wildfire inside of her, Jake’s desperation, her own clawing panic over Peter. She had no idea how to fix any of it. But she could at least give Sarah some shred of peace. It was the only thing in the world she knew with any certainty. “But it’s okay. I want to go.”
“Then I’m coming with you.” He stood taller as he addressed Jake. “I’m coming with her.”
“Fine,” Jake grunted. “We can take my car.”
When they reached his truck, Jake opened the back door and they climbed in.
“What is happening?” Peter muttered but grew quiet when Louise clutched his hand.
At the Henleys’ house, Caroline stood on the porch, her face pale. “What did…?” She trailed off as she looked from Louise to Jake to Peter. “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.” A small, little sob escaped her body. “I had to tell him.”
“It’s okay,” Louise said as she held her old friend’s eyes. “I understand.”
“Let’s go inside,” Jake said from behind them. “The sooner we do this the sooner you can both go home.” There was an apologetic note in his voice as he steered her into the house.
Sarah was sleeping in the bed, her forehead sweaty and eye lids fluttering as Louise approached. Her breaths were irregular, her bony chest rising and falling in labored waves.
“Hi, Sarah,” Louise said softly. She placed her hands on Sarah’s chest as the slow, familiar heat built inside of her skin. And then she closed her eyes.
The room was silent. Peter stood only inches behind her, hovering protectively.
“Is that…? Is she…?” Jake’s voice broke.
Louise kept her hands on Sarah as energy rushed into all the sick places. She pressed deeper into Sarah’s skin, and the heat intensified. But Sarah didn’t stir or wake.
“Is she better?” Caroline’s words cut through the room. She stood beside Jake, her eyes hopeful as she peered down at her mother.
“I made her pain go away.” She needed Caroline to hear, to understand. “I can’t do more.”
Caroline shook her head. “I saw you. I saw you do it.” She pointed at Peter. “You fixed him.”
Peter’s eyes were wide, and she saw the question there, the one he had been asking her for days, what really happened after the accident.
For a moment, they were the only two people in the room, the only two people in the universe. Through her grief, Louise felt gratitude that she had brought him back. She knew now it was selfish, that it ultimately changed nothing for Peter, but at least she had a little more time with him in this world.
She wished she could give that to Jake and Caroline. But even as she eased her pain, she had felt an opposing force, pulling Sarah away.
“I can’t,” Louise said quietly.
“Mom?” Caroline said quietly as she moved forward.
Sarah’s eyes opened, unfocused at first, then blinked into awareness as she looked from Caroline to Louise and Peter and then finally to Jake. “Oh, honey,” she said hoarsely. “She shouldn’t be here. She can’t help me.”
At Sarah’s words, Jake released an animal-like sound, and he crouched down and put his head in his hands.
“It’s okay, Louise,” Sarah said as she watched Jake. Her face seemed to drain of color. She placed one hand on top of Louise’s. “You can let go, honey.”
Louise didn’t move. She tried to hold steady.
Sarah’s expression was filled with so much love and pain that it was hard to know where one ended and the other began. “It’s time for Louise to go home now, Jake.”
Jake lifted his head. “She can’t. Not yet. I didn’t tell you why she’s here.”
“I know enough,” Sarah said. “You think I never heard stories about her great-grandmother? Everyone in town used to talk about Ms. Helene. The beautiful French woman whose orchard never had a bad season, even in drought years, who took care of everyone in town, who some people even called a healer.” A cough wracked her body, and Louise’s touch sunk deeper until it was gone. Sarah smiled as she turned to Louise. “I knew the second you came back here that you were just like her, just like your grandmother. How could you not be?”
Louise released a ragged breath. It didn’t matter that she was like them. She didn’t want to just take away Sarah’s suffering. She wanted to fix her, and Peter. But she couldn’t.
“Can you change it, honey? Make the cancer go away for good?”
Louise could tell Sarah already knew the answer, that she was only asking so her husband and daughter could hear.
Louise shook her head and removed her hands. She felt Peter’s arms come around her.
Sarah addressed Peter. “Will you please take Louise back to her grandmother’s house? Go on, honey.”
Louise’s hands continued to pulse with soft little waves of heat. She didn’t want to leave Sarah in so much pain.
Sarah reached out to Caroline, who climbed into the bed beside her. “We’re okay.” She kissed Caroline’s forehead. “We’re going to be just fine. And I know your grandmother is just down the street, if I need her.”
Louise let Peter lead her out of the room, but she stopped in the hallway at the sound of Jake’s voice.
“I’m sorry…” he said.
Louise felt no anger, only sadness. She nodded once, the only response she could muster, then followed Peter out into the summer night.