A Lady Under Siege(48)
Squinting in the sunlight, Derek dragged himself to a sitting position, tugging at his housecoat to keep his privates covered. Meghan caught a glimpse of his thigh and glanced away quickly to avoid having to acknowledge that something might have briefly been on display. Glancing down, Derek satisfied himself that he was decent, then fumbled for a cigarette.
“Here’s my theory of worry, yours to take away at no charge,” he told her. “Physically, we humans are hardly more evolved than our mammalian brethren, but mentally, through some fluke of evolution, we’ve developed a massive consciousness, which compels us to build elaborate empires of worry in our minds. Upon death, like our physical bodies, these worries dissolve into maggot food. Why worry about maggot food?”
“I’m not. I’m worried about my daughter.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
He took a deep drag on his cigarette. “Don’t you think your lady under siege is an appropriate metaphor for your own life?”
“I already have a therapist, thank you. She made the same observation, but I’d already thought of it myself. She at least believes me when I tell her what I’ve experienced.”
“She’s paid to dole out sympathy. Or pretend to.”
“Maybe I should pay you then,” Meghan said sharply. “I suppose I should be grateful you’re willing to listen to me, that you haven’t told me to get lost. But it would be so much easier if I thought you believed me.”
“What difference would it make if I did?”
“It would help me a lot. I could pass information to Thomas without you getting all strange about it, and letting me know by smirks and grimaces that you think I’m a freak.”
“This Thomas, what is he like? He looks just like me, correct?”
“His face is the same, but he’s better groomed. He holds himself well. He’s very fit—he spends much of his time in training, for jousts and warfare. So he gets lots and lots of hard exercise. And there’s no junk food in his diet, it’s pretty much coarse bread and meat, from what I’ve seen. So yes, he’s like you, but in better shape, and better turned out. Super-fit people are never slobby, it seems.”
Derek sucked in his paunch and sat up straighter on the picnic table. “I’m actually in pretty good shape for a man of thirty-eight,” he said.
“If you say so,” Meghan answered. “Now if you don’t mind, I need to say a few things to Thomas.”
“As if I could stop you. Round two.”
“All right then. First off, Thomas, I’ve been doing research into natural antibiotics. Those are plants that might help heal Daphne’s arm where that surgeon’s been hacking at it. To help kill any infection there, vinegar and lavender oil are strongly antiseptic. They should be used when cleaning it, although I’m sure they’ll sting. Thyme and tarragon are good in her soup, and onion and garlic too. I was going to suggest myrrh, the same stuff the Wise Men brought to baby Jesus—it’s a tree sap with wonderful antibacterial properties, but it would have to come from the Middle East and I doubt you’d be able to get it. Now secondly, I have a theory, based largely on the sound of that cough of hers, that Daphne might have a lung disease called tuberculosis. The most obvious symptom of it is night sweats. So I’m asking you: does she perspire a lot in her sleep? If she wakes soaked in sweat I feel we’re halfway to a diagnosis.”
“I’ll make sure he gets the message,” Derek assured her. “Maybe I’ll sing a little song for him about tuberculosis—rhyme it with psychosis.”
“Please don’t say things like that. It’s not helpful.”
“It’s my nature,” he said. “I’m just messing with you. I do have some sympathy—I may not believe what you tell me, but I believe you believe it. I don’t doubt your sincerity.”
“Right. It’s my sanity you wonder about.”
“Since you put it that way, yes.”
“I have an idea,” she said. “I’m going to ask Thomas something. Thomas, I need to convince Derek here that I’m not mentally ill, and I think there’s a way you can help me. Can you please think of some really private, obscure thing you know about him? Something you’ve observed from being in Derek’s head, something no one else could possibly know? Please, share it with Sylvanne, and I’ll hear it, and then come back to Derek with the evidence, with rock-solid proof, and then he’ll finally have to believe me that there is, in fact, a Thomas in his mind.”