Kendall stared at Myrtle, who was asleep in the chair next to her bed. The old woman looked haggard and tired. She had been trying to coax Kendall into eating something on her plate for a while now. The doctors had been threatening to insert a feeding tube if she didn't start eating. Kendall just didn't have an appetite for anything. She tried to eat, but she just couldn't bring herself to actually get the food down her throat. She allowed the nurse to put the tube feed up her nose.
It was pretty uncomfortable at first. Then she got used to it after a few hours. She was told she would still have to try to eat actual food. She pushed the piece of rubbery looking chicken around on her plate and then smashed a pea. She thought she probably wouldn't eat that food even if she were actually hungry.
Her mother had been in and out of the hospital checking in on her, bringing her little snacks that just ended up at the nurses' station anyway. Greenlee came back once and bought a hue arrangement of some very fragrant flowers that made her start to heave. Those were out at the nurses' station too. She told Greenlee not to come back.
Kendall flattened out the mound of mashed potatoes on her tray and strategically arranged the peas on top and the baby carrots around the sides. Maybe if she had food that actually had a flavor… She glanced up at the hanging bottle of formula and sighed.
She wished Zach hadn't left. She tried to think back to the day she told him to leave. She couldn't think of anything she had actually said that would have made him pick up everything he owned and skip town without even a goodbye. She would have stopped him.
But, thanks to her so-called best friend, her husband was gone. She closed her eyes and felt tears start to burn her eyelids. Her heart felt like it was breaking all over again. She felt hurt and despondent and rage and anger all at the same time. She flung the tray of food off the bedside table onto the floor.
Myrtle jumped; as she was startled by the loud crash the tray and its contents made as they forcefully hit the floor. Myrtle stood and tried to console Kendall, but Kendall would have none of it. She pulled her hands out of Myrtle's and gently pushed her away.
"Please, I want to be alone, Myrtle…" Kendall cried.
The door to the room slowly opened and Myrtle looked up to see who it was. Her heart felt light when she saw Zach come in. She thought she would have to tell Greenlee to leave again. She looked back at Kendall, who was curled into a ball on the bed, with her eyes shut tight.
Myrtle smiled at Kendall and whispered, "Alright, darlin', I'll leave you be for now, but I'll be back with someone to clean up this mess you made on the floor."
Kendall nodded and wiped the tears away from her closed eyes. Myrtle made her way over to Zach, who stood quietly, and patiently. She looked at him, touched his arm, and quietly left the room.
Zach tipped over to Kendall as she lay on the bed with her eyes closed; she was still crying, thinking she was still alone. He reached out to her, and gently pushed the curls away from her face as he whispered her name.
Kendall opened her eyes and looked up, to see Zach standing over her, looking as haggard and as lonely as she felt. She thought maybe she was seeing things now. She reached out to touch him, and he was there.
She grabbed him by the jacket he wore and pulled him closer to her, and pulled herself up in the bed at the same time. He was there, he was real, and she could see him, touch him, and she could smell him. She threw her arms around his neck and held on, not wanting to let go of him in this fierce embrace.
Zach wrapped his arms around the thin frame of his wife and held on to her. She felt so tiny in his arms, and so fragile.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, "I was so wrong to leave you the way I did." He pulled back and looked at her, her features a bit strange looking with the plastic tube in her nose and white tape on her cheek. Her face was very pale looking compared to how she looked the last time he saw her.
Kendall looked up at him, and into his eyes, "Don't ever leave me again, Zach," she managed to croak out before she started crying again.
Zach bent his head down and kissed her lips softly, "Never," he told her, and then pulled her into another hug, crushing her against him.
Edie finished looking over the reports and then picked up the telephone, dialing the number on the piece of paper that had take up residency in her purse since just before leaving Rio de Janeiro. It was the tracking number for the packages to be sent from Zach's Penthouse. He told her to just leave them, and not bother with them, that he would deal with all that later.
But Edie, being as efficient as she was, refused to leave things half done. Even though Zach said he would put the Penthouse back on the market later, she wanted to have his things moved out for him.
She had arranged for a company, Skynet, to finish packing his belongings and to send them to Pine Valley. It had been about two days since the packages were actually shipped. When she got the recording on the phone and put in the tracking number, she was surprised to hear that the shipment had been delivered already to the cargo bay of the hotel earlier that morning.
She was pleased with how fast the company worked. She decided that it was a well spent $4000 to have Zach's things delivered so quickly.
Two days, everything had been a whirlwind. Zach had come back to Pine Valley to find Kendall in the hospital and not eating on her own. That quickly changed when he went to see her. Edie had only seen her for a short moment, not wanting to intrude on her and Zach's time together. She left a small potted sweet pea blossom and told her to get better soon.
She had watched CNN to see if there was anything more on the sweet little girl that Zach had befriended while he was gone. The search for her had become an international hunt. The authorities had discovered that there was indeed a child trafficking organization being run very close by where Zach lived. People had reported seeing a child who matched Ursula's description. There was even a report that the child may have been found, murdered, but it was a child who just had the same features and was about the same age.
Edie made her way down to the cargo bay of the hotel and looked around for the boxes that were Zach's. She was sure he would want to go through them and get out some things when he had the chance to. She had four men load the boxes into and empty room inside the hotel itself so that it was easily accessible. There was so much that needed to be done so when that little task was done, she headed out to the casino.
-----------------------------------------------
Edie was talking to one of the bartenders when Zach came through the doors. She stopped him and asked for an update on Kendall. He was glad to tell her that the doctors finally agreed to take that damned tube out of her nose so that he could see her beautiful face. Edie informed him that she had his things taken up to an empty room just outside the VIP suite.
He was on air; his wife was going to be ok, the baby was healthy and very active, and neither one of them wanted to divorce the other. He had told Kendall about his time in Rio de Janeiro and his friends who had been killed, and the missing Ursula. She felt bad for them, but she was glad to have him home with her.
Zach opened the door of the empty room and flipped on the light switch. He was surrounded by box after box. There were four wardrobe boxes and two other tall boxes that were off to the side. He wanted to make an attempt to find his casual clothes. The boxes here were easier to get to than the ones in the storage unit on the outskirts of Pine Valley. He took off his blazer and tossed it on top of a nearby box and started the hunt for his jeans, sweat suits, and sweaters.
After opening one box that was clearly marked identifying its contents, he took a huge load of clothes across the hall to the VIP suite then returned to open another box. When he opened the next box, he was greeted by a terrible smell.
He looked around the box, thinking there was probably feces on the bottom of it, or maybe even a dead rat or something. He found nothing.
He started taking his clothes out of the box, thinking that maybe the dead rat or whatever it was had somehow made it into the box. But the more clothes he removed from the box, the stronger the smell got and Zach wondered just how large of an animal could have gotten into this box.
When he removed enough clothes to reveal the handle of the hard suitcase, he grabbed it. Thinking it was empty, he was surprised to find that it was heavy. He wondered what the hell the Skynet workers put into the suitcase. He got a good grip on the suitcase and pulled hard on it, bringing it out of the top of the box and quickly put it onto the wooden coffee table with a "thud."
Clearly, this suitcase was the source of the smell that now filled the room. He flipped the suitcase onto its side and pressed the two buttons to release the hood. When the hood of the suitcase popped open, Zach had to turn his head and gag because of the horrendous smell.
He turned to peer into the suitcase. He fell to his knees, stunned at the sight before him.