For your smile
"At last, however, to her own and her husband's inexpressible joy, she give birth to a daughter. As soon as the palace guns announced this event, the whole nation went wild with delight. Flags waved everywhere, bells were set pealing until the steeples rocked, crowds tossed up their hats and cheered, while the soldiers presented arms, and even strangers meeting in the street fell upon each other's neck, exclaiming: "Our Queen has a daughter! Yes, yes—Our Queen has a daughter! Long live the little Princess!"
-Sleeping Beauty - Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Pine Valley Hospital, Pine Valley, PA
Tad Martin was here to meet his father, Joe. To take him out to dinner and discuss father and son things, as fathers and sons were obliged to do once every few months.
He hadn't expected to see David Hayward here. Much less to see David Hayward beaming and smiling. Tad remembered hearing something from Liza a few days ago about Hayward's daughter's christening. Perhaps today was the day.
David was taking off his white lab coat, while talking to a nurse, as though he was getting ready to leave the hospital.
Tad Martin was not a vengeful man. Still, there was a part of him that couldn't understand why. Why did David, who lied and schemed and hurt everyone in his path, end up with so much? He had a wife he adored, a career others envied…a beautiful baby girl.
Why?
Several doors down
A young surgeon walked out into the hospital corridor, a grave expression on his face.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Zoltan. We did everything we could for your husband."
The old woman with the wrinkled skin and hair the colour of burnt ashes nodded in silence. She knew he was dead. She had known at the precise moment his heart stopped beating, forty-five seconds ago. She had felt it then, deep in her bones, but she didn't bother telling the young man.
He thought she would be shocked at the news, and so she let him believe that she was. Shocked. People here were different than in the Old World. People here didn't feel the same way. They didn't believe the same way.
"I want to see him," she demanded.
The surgeon put his arm around her shoulder, "Of course, Ma'am." And he ushered her into the operating room.
He stood behind her while she bent over his lifeless body.
"Can you please leave?" the old woman asked him.
The surgeon left the room, leaving her alone with the dead man.
The old woman kissed his face. It was cold and unresponsive.
To most people her husband was a nobody. A gypsy immigrant who barely spoke English. A high school janitor who never learned how to read.
But she knew better. She knew exactly how powerful he was. How great his gift.
'Cup your hands over my face,' he had told her one day, long ago. 'Make a wish.'
'And what will you do?' she had asked.
'I'll make it come true.'
And he did.
And now she did it one last time. She cupped her hands over his face, while her tears fell down on them, dripping between her fingers, onto his cheeks underneath.
Outside, further down the hallway
Tad Martin sat down and waited. His father was running late and, as if to add to his annoyance; David Hayward was still in his line of vision.
He was still talking to the nurse, an easy, relaxed smile on his face. Then Hayward scanned his watch and excused himself from her. It looked as though he had to be somewhere and was in a hurry.
'Unlike myself, who has nowhere to go. Nowhere to be.'
Why was he so full of bitterness all of a sudden? Tad rarely dwelled on the fact that David Hayward seemed to have everything he once wanted. But now, seeing him here, in the hospital, smiling and carefree, fed an anger in him that he didn't know he still possessed.
'For once, I wish you could suffer…suffer the terrible pain I've suffered and to know what it's like to lose everything, the way I lost everything.'
He felt a hand on his shoulder. A flat, wiry palm pressing into it.
"Be careful," he heard a voice behind him say. A woman's voice.
Tad gasped. Her hand was burning hot. It felt as though a branding iron was seeping through the fabric of his shirt and into the flesh beneath.
He recoiled from her touch, thinking surely his shirt and shoulder were on fire. He expected to smell smoke when he pushed her hand away, but there was nothing. No mark of any kind.
"Be careful," she repeated sadly.
"Careful of what?" he demanded, breathing heavily, feeling suddenly light-headed. Her body was old and frail, yet there was an undeniable energy coming from this woman with the ash black hair.
"Be careful what you wish for," was all she said.
Her touch drained him and he had to close his eyes for just a moment. A mere second.
When he opened them again she was gone.
And the first pair of eyes he locked his with were those of David Hayward.
Wildwind Estate Chapel
Anna Devane paced the aisle of the chapel, looking at her silver watch, annoyed.
"Where is he?" she asked her nephew. "The priest is waiting. He should have been here twenty minutes ago."
Aidan put his hands on her shoulders, "Will you relax? He'll be here. He's probably just stuck in traffic or held up at the hospital."
"Held up for his daughter's christening?" she asked incredulously. "All this was David's idea. You think he could at least make the effort to be on time for it!"
Anna bit her fingernails. Something was wrong; she sensed it. She had her doubts about the christening ever since David first mentioned it to her. Neither of them were particularly religious. In fact, Anna couldn't remember the last time she had set foot in a church to attend a service.
"Why don't we let Leora choose her faith, when she gets older?" she had suggested.
But David didn't see it that way.
"When I operated on her, before she was born," he gently explained. "You asked me to have faith. That wasn't easy for me, but I went to pray for her. For both of you. And now, I feel like our daughter should be baptized, in that faith."
Even though Anna didn't agree, his words had made her smile then. David Hayward, of all people, trying to convince her that he wanted a christening for their little girl. To her, faith wasn't necessarily confined within the walls of a church but Anna didn't need much convincing. It wasn't so much an entrance into a world of faith; Leora's christening was also a celebration. A celebration of love and life.
It had been seven long months ago that she was born, and for the first few months both Anna and David had worried endlessly that she might need surgery again, that she might not be strong enough to survive without a pacemaker. Yet in another supreme lesson of faith, their little girl had proven both of them wrong, her tiny heart growing stronger with each passing week.
Maggie approached her now, carrying Leora in her arms. "I think she wants her mommy," Maggie told Anna, handing the girl over to her.
Anna took Leora from her hands, and kissed her forehead, "I know, baby. You're impatient like your Mom, aren't you?" As always, the baby calmed her, making it unable for her to stay angry. "I'll tell you what, for his next birthday, we're going to buy your father a watch and set it half an hour fast." The baby was swathed in a long, white silk christening gown whose fabric fell so far to the ground; it touched Anna's heels when she walked.
"I'll tell the priest he needs to hang on a little longer," Aidan told her.
"Thanks." Her nephew had an infinite patience that she could only envy. Anna turned around with the baby in her arms to see the faces of those they had invited to the christening.
There was Maureen, whom Aidan had brought along. And Henry, Maggie's date. Then there was Janelle, from the clinic where David worked. And Greenlee. And lastly, Edmund, who had been kind enough to let them use the chapel at Wildwind for the service.
Seven guests in total. Each of whom wanted nothing but happiness for Leora.
In the distance, Anna heard the ringing of a cell phone. She barely took note of it until she was about to sit down in one of the pews and felt Edmund approaching her from behind.
His expression was serious, and Anna's instincts immediately sensed that something wasn't quite right in the way he looked at her.
"What is it?" she asked, half whispering when she saw that Leora was on the verge of falling asleep in her arms.
"It's for you."
Anna gave him a puzzled look, "Can you take a message?" Leora was about to be baptized. Surely this could wait.
Edmund shook his head, "No…you should take this, Anna. It's about David."
"David?"
Anna straightened the fabric of her camel coloured dress after handing the sleeping baby over to Edmund.
The eyes of the others were on her, as she stepped outside the chapel to take the call.
"Is this Chief Devane?" a voice asked her on the phone.
Anna closed the heavy wooden door behind her, stepping outside into the grounds of Wildwind. It was a beautiful September afternoon. Not a cloud in the sky.
"Yes, yes this Chief Devane."
"We're sorry to inform you of this over the phone, but there's been an accident."
Pine Valley Hospital, Pine Valley
Anna couldn't remember how exactly she had arrived at the hospital. How it was that one moment she'd been holding Leora in her arms at Wildwind and the next she was standing in a hospital hallway.
Who had taken the girl from her? Who had driven her here? She could remember only fragments of words and images.
Aidan putting his strong, calm arms around her when they entered the hospital.
'He was unconscious when we extracted him from the car.'
'Critical condition…lapsed into a coma…'
Now Joe Martin stood in front of her saying something about internal haemorrhaging and brain wave activity, neither of which she really understood.
"What are you saying?" she demanded. She didn't think she had been crying but now she felt a wet, salty liquid touch her lips.
"It's good news," he said slowly, as though speaking to a child. "It means he could pull through this."
'He could pull through?' Anna was certain she had heard him wrong. Of course David was going to pull through. He was the most obstinate, driven man she knew. He couldn't die.
'No,' she shook her head in a resolute gesture of denial, 'Of course he can't.' He was going to drive her crazy with his unpunctuality long after Leora graduated from high school. Long after both their heads of hair changed into pure white. There was no other option, really. None.
"Anna...I think maybe you should sit down…"
"Sit down?" Anna stared at Aidan. Somehow his hands were resting on her arms again. "Don't be absurd. I can't just sit down. David needs me."
Janelle was there as well. Anna wasn't sure how she got there and now she was giving her the same look she just received from her nephew.
"Aidan's right," she said gently. "You're hyperventilating and you're white as a sheet."
Anna glared at her, "Would you stop treating me like this? I'm not some child you have to protect…I want to see my husband!" She did feel light-headed but not sufficiently for it to dim her anger. She turned to Joe, "Please…can I go see him?"
"I don't think that's a good idea, right now. He's breathing with the help of a respirator and…"
"Please, Joe. I need to see him."
The old man paused, then nodded. "Fine, but just for a minute."
Anna breathed a sigh of relief. If she could only see him, it would reassure her that he couldn't be as precariously close to death as they were making it out to be. They obviously had no idea just how strong he was.
Joe moved her into the operating room. A man had died here earlier today. An elderly, Romanian man, who was hit by a truck driver on the way to his job at a local high school.
Anna had told herself she would remain composed when she saw him. Yes, she was his wife and she loved him, but she was also the Chief of Police. She was tough.
"Oh God," she moved a hand to her mouth to cover the gasp that escaped unwillingly. "No…David. No."
Her husband was bare-chested, his body covered in tubes and wires. Machines whirred as they surrounded his stainless, steel bed and a thick tube ran into his throat, giving his lungs the oxygen they needed to keep his heart pumping. A bandage covered both his head and parts of his abdomen and tiny trails of blood ran alongside them.
"Oh God…" The room spun in front of her. How could the man she loved possibly be alive underneath all that? Her hands still covered her face and again she felt unwilling tears flow over them.
"Anna. Please come outside with me."
She vaguely recognized the voice. Aidan. When exactly had he entered the room?
"Anna…please. This has to be a shock for you."
She shook her head, "No…I want to stay here."
The room kept spinning in front of her and she leaned against the cold, tile wall in an effort to steady it. She kept staring at him, unblinking. Staring at his lifeless form lying on the bed. The smell of disinfectants, medicine and blood was suddenly making her nauseous.
"He was so happy this morning…"
"Anna, please will you come."
Anna didn't hear him. "He said this would be the most wonderful day…the day we christen our daughter and celebrate the love and the faith that brought her this far. He was looking forward to it…" Her voice faded. "So happy…he was so happy…"
She felt herself slowly sliding down the smooth, sterile wall. Were it not for Aidan's quick reaction she would have hit the floor with a thud.