Cast a Pale Shadow(20)

"Should you be out of bed?"

She looked up and smiled, the shyness of it melting his heart. "I feel much better now. I think I'll feel better yet if I get out of these things." She fingered the limp and wrinkled cotton that dipped and drooped about her.

"But you're in style.. That color is the latest thing.," he chuckled.

She tilted her head and squinted one eye shut to consider it. "No, it's just not me, I guess." She shook out a dusty rose dress and laid it across the bed and found a darker rose chenille cardigan at the bottom of the suitcase.

"I'll leave so you can change."

"No, wait, please. You brought these for me and I haven't thanked you."

"You don't have to."

"Yes, I do. I don't know how to repay your kindness and your -- bravery." She frowned. "There is so much I can't explain to you but you deserve an explanation. Especially since I have another favor to ask, and it's so hard to -- to--"

"Just ask." There was only the width of the bed that separated them, and he wished he could reach out and take her hands again but she held them clenched at her waist, rubbing her thumbs together.

"Can you loan me some money?" she blurted.

"Money?"

"I'll pay you back. I'll get a job and pay you back as soon as I can."

"But, Trissa..."

"It's just that I can't go home. I think you know that. And without money, I don't know where... it's just -- there's no one else I can think to ask."

Nicholas pulled out his wallet and scowled at its flatness. He hoped he had enough to make his point. "How much do you want?"

Her eyes widened as he tossed bills one by one on the bed. "I -- I don't know. I thought a hotel and a little for food."

"And transportation. You'll need to get to this hotel and eventually to this job you plan to find."

"Oh. Yes, I guess so."

"You probably will need enough to tide you over until the bruises fade. Job hunting is hard enough even when you don't look like a defeated prizefighter."

She chewed on her lower lip. He emptied his wallet and searched his pockets. Coins and wadded bills joined the pile already on the bed.

"And then there's the hospital bill."

"The hospital bill?" She slumped to the bed. "The hospital bill. What am I going to do?"

"You could come home with me," he suggested as he rounded the bed to sit next to her.

She shook her head and buried her face in her hands.

"Trissa, listen. I lied to these people here, and I'm sorry. I couldn't think of what else to do. You needed help and I was afraid they wouldn't help you without consent. I didn't even know your name, so I..."

She jerked her face up sharply. "But you did! You did know my name! I heard you calling me. On the tracks. You called my name! Who are--"

"Mrs. Brewer?" a woman's voice inquired from across the room.

Trissa had no reason to respond to that name that everyone insisted on calling her but she turned toward the doorway. Nicholas feared she was now recalling just why he frightened her. He reached for her wrist and held it firmly for a moment, his eyes burning into hers as he whispered, "I had to lie, Trissa. I had to. Trust me." He released her and dropped his hands to his sides. Trissa trembled.

"Mrs. Brewer, I'm Georgia Pulasky. Dr. Edmonds asked me to stop by. Mr. Brewer." The woman was a robust blond with pale freckles crowding her face and the backs of her hands. She nodded and smiled a greeting at Nicholas then fixed her eyes steadily Trissa's face.

Trissa raked the money off the bed and, clutching it in one fist, she pushed it at Nicholas. "I think Dr. Edmonds wants me to talk to Mrs. Pulasky alone, Nicholas," she said steadily, her voice a register higher than before.

His shoulders slumped as he nodded, shoved the money in his jacket pocket and turned toward the door. "I'll wait -- outside. Uh, will you want to talk to me also, Mrs. Pulasky?"

"I don't expect so, Mr. Brewer," the woman answered and dismissed him.





Chapter Seven





Georgia Pulasky invited Trissa to make herself comfortable. "If you would feel better sitting in the chair than the bed, it's all right with me. I just have a few questions. Nothing to be frightened about."

"I'm not frightened," Trissa said, "...of you," she added hastily. She remained standing, and folded her arms across her chest.

"Of someone else then? Anything you share with me will be held in confidence." With a glance over her shoulder at the comatose roommate, Mrs. Pulasky tugged at the curtain.

Trissa smiled at her caution. "You don't have to worry about Patty, Mrs. Pulasky. She and I have sort of an understanding. I tell her all my troubles, and she keeps them to herself."

The social worker frowned and pulled a chair into a position that would put Patty out of her line of vision. "It doesn't make you uncomfortable to share a room with someone as bad off as that?"

"I suppose it depends on your definition of bad off,'" Trissa shrugged. "Blissful might be a synonym some would use."

Georgia sat and smoothed her skirt, composing a flicker of alarm out of her face before she looked up. "You would use that synonym?"

"I might. But I'm afraid she dreams sometimes. That would ruin her peace. I guess nothing's perfect in this world." Trissa blinked a few times and tilted her face toward the window.

"Mrs... May I call you Trissa? You seem so young to be Mrs. Brewer."

"Yes."

"Trissa, Dr. Edmonds expressed some concern that you may be troubled by something deeper than the accident you described. We thought you might feel more relaxed talking to a woman."

"Dr. Edmonds told me you would be coming. I promised I would be truthful. As much as I could be." She squeezed her eyes against a sudden mist of tears.

"I came only to help you. There is nothing about me you should worry about. Ask me whatever you want. Tell me anything that I could do."

"I don't know what to ask or tell you."

"You could start by describing the accident to me. From the beginning."

Trissa swiped at her eyes with the baggy sleeve of her hospital robe and sighed. She would not look directly at Georgia but perched on the edge of the bed, her gaze fixed out the window. "I was walking. It was dark and I was stumbling along, thinking and not paying attention to where I was going. I was being stupid and careless, and Nicholas -- Nicholas came looking for me, I think."

"Looking for you?"

Trissa glanced at Georgia then quickly away again. "Yes, yes, I'm sure he was looking for me. He saw the train and yelled my name..."

"The train?"

The echoed words startled Trissa. She wished she hadn't said them. Fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve, she pulled a thread loose to unravel it. There was a long gap of silence. But eventually her shoulders sagged with resignation and she continued, "Yes. I told you I was stupid. I was walking on the tracks. He -- Nicholas risked his life to save mine. He was hurt too, didn't you see that? He could have been killed, but he saved me."

"But he's your husband--"

"Yes. My husband. He called my name and pushed me out of the way."

Couldn't she see the story was too fantastic and delivered too haltingly to have been made up? It was only part of the truth and not the most important part.

"Trissa, why were you on the tracks?"

"I told you. I was walking. And thinking."

"Were you running away, Trissa?"

She could not answer.

After long moments filled with only the sound of Patty's strained breathing. the woman asked again. "Were you running away from your husband?"

"No."

"If you don't want to go home with him, I can find someplace for you. Or perhaps your parents?"

Trissa flinched, clasped her hands and pressed them to her lips, shaking her head. "No, not my parents. Where -- what do you mean by someplace?"

"A shelter. A place for women who want to be safe and have nowhere to go," she said. "No one but us would know the location."

Trissa's voice came out soft and filled with uncertainty. She tried the words to convince herself, "I -- I can go home with Nicholas. He said I could. Yes, he was looking for me, wasn't he? I will go home with him." Her hands clenched into hard fists. "They can't make me go anywhere I don't want to go, can they?"

Georgia rose and stepped toward her, patting her white-knuckled hands. "No one wants to make you do anything. But are you sure this is what you want?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm very sure."

"Please, let me talk to Mr. Brewer before you decide. Dr. Edmonds is concerned for your safety."