Jubilee's Journey (Wyattsville #2)(68)
They spent close to twenty minutes going back and forth, arguing the fine points of what could or could not be considered a legal relationship. In the end, Olivia had to accept that she had no ground to stand on.
“I’ve given Anita a few days to rethink what she wants to do,” Mahoney said. “Until then Jubilee can stay here.”
A few days seemed like such a small amount of time. They’d already had thirteen days together, and now there were just a few more. How sad, Olivia thought. She counted the hours Ethan Allen would have to spend with Jubilee—how many more poker games he’d let her win, how many peanut butter sandwiches… Then she caught something that shed a new light on the situation.
“I thought my bringing Jubilee with me might change Anita’s way of thinking,” Mahoney said. “The girl is her sister’s child, so she’s got to feel something.”
Olivia’s face brightened. She knew she’d found the opportunity she’d been looking for. “That’s a wonderful idea,” she replied.
The Awakening
On Wednesday morning Carmella Klaussner did exactly as she had been doing for the past two weeks. She climbed out of bed, went down on her knees, and prayed. “Please, God, save my Sidney. Make today the day he opens his eyes.”
Those were the same words she repeated every morning, but each day she added something, an extra pledge or promise that might entice God to answer her prayer.
“Return my Sidney to me,” she said, “and from this day forth I’ll care for the orphans and provide shelter for the homeless.”
Carmella offered those pledges with an open heart and paid no heed to the fact that Wyattsville had no orphans, no homeless, and no soup kitchen in need of food. The Saint Peter’s Thrift Shop was the only thing Wyattsville had to offer when it came to charitable organizations.
It was on the sixth day that Carmella had begun adding an extra request to each and every prayer. It was the same every time. Once she’d pleaded for Sidney’s life and vowed to do good deeds she added, “And, Father, in the name of all that’s righteous and merciful, punish those who did this to my Sidney.” On several occasions she detailed the punishment she deemed most appropriate. At times when she was feeling benevolent the punishment was simply living with the guilt of their sins, but when she was angriest it was death.
Three days earlier Carmella watched the detectives take the boy from the hospital in handcuffs and felt God was at long last answering her prayers. But that was three days ago, and since then nothing else had changed. The respirator still whooshed air in and out of Sidney’s lungs, the monitors continued to count his heartbeats. Yet Sidney’s eyes remained closed.
On Monday when the Wyattsville Daily announced Paul’s arrest, Carmella bought two copies of the newspaper. She kept one copy at home to serve as a reminder of answered prayers. The second copy she took to the hospital so when Sidney awoke she could prove to him justice had been served.
But two weeks of hoping and praying had taken its toll on Carmella, and she felt weary as a woman who’d given birth to quintuplets. When the alarm buzzed at six-thirty Wednesday morning, she simply could not pull herself from the bed. Carmella silenced the alarm and buried the clock in the bottom drawer of the nightstand.
When Sidney Klaussner’s eyes fluttered open, he was alone in the room. Groggy and dazed, he tried to remember when he had fallen asleep. Then he heard the machines and felt the weight of tape against his forearm. Slowly he began to realize this was not home. He was not lying in his own comfortable bed. He was lying on something that moved. He could feel the pressure of swells rising and falling beneath him. He tried to call out, and only an indistinguishable grunt came from his lips. Fear grabbed Sidney by the throat, and when he lifted his hand to his face he felt the tube. That’s when his heart began pounding against his chest, hammering to be free of whatever prison this was.
Barbara Walsh was on duty Wednesday morning, and when Sidney’s heart monitor beeped its warning she went flying into his room.
“Good Lord, you’re awake!”
Within minutes Sidney’s room was crowded with nurses and doctors.
In the frenzy of explaining to Sidney that he’d been shot and was now in the hospital, no one thought to telephone Carmella.
Twenty minutes after he opened his eyes, Carmella pushed the entrance button for the ICU ward and spotted a number of nurses coming and going from Sidney’s room.
“Oh, my God!” she screamed and took off running. Circling around an orderly she’d never before met, Carmella pushed her way into the room. Before she could squeeze past the crowd of nurses hovering over the bed, she realized the respirator was no longer whooshing.
“Sidneeeeeey!” she screamed and fell to the floor in a dead faint.
When she came to, Carmella was sitting in the chair on the far side of Sidney’s room and Barbara Walsh was holding a cool cloth to her head.
“You fainted,” Barbara explained. “Nothing’s wrong. It was simply the stress of all you’ve been through and the shock of…” Her words droned on, but Carmella heard nothing else. She was looking at Sidney and trying to believe that what she was seeing was not another dream but the actual answer to all her prayers.
Sidney was sitting up and the tracheostomy tube that had been taped to his face was gone. He was neither smiling nor frowning but had a look of confusion stretched the full width of his face. Carmella waved Barbara off, then rose and wobbled across the room to stand beside the bed.