CHAPTER FIFTEEN
We woke up in the sauna, Annie coughing and unable to get a breath of the hot air. I picked her up and took her out in a couple long steps, crouching outside in the cool air and never letting go while she coughed herself ragged. Hester came out behind us, so worried I could feel it rattling off her. The sky had turned to twilight while we were inside, an’ the last light slipped away before Annie could breathe again. She turned her face against my chest an’ said, real quiet, “If you could come back tomorrow, Miss Jones? I’m very tired now, and I suppose we still have to try to find who set this illness on me.”
“I’ll come around ten,” Hester promised, an’ left without going back through the house. I picked Annie up again and brought her inside, put her on the couch, and went to make tea.
When I came back into the living room she was on her feet, looking out the window at the dark lawn. “Annie? You all right, sweetheart?”
“I spent my adult life watching people deny the truth.” Her reflection was in the windows, faint ‘cause there weren’t many lights on inside. Made her look like a ghost, already fading. I started toward her an’ she shook her head, almost a shiver, like saying stay away. I guessed a fellow could take offense, but I’d been married to the lady a long time. It just meant she was thinking aloud, not hardly talking to me at all, and that if I got too close she’d start feeling self-conscious and clam up. I sat down, listening insteada crowding.
“Mostly about illness, of course,” she said. “Promising themselves or each other that this wasn’t it, this sickness wasn’t going to finish them off. Promising if they got out of there, they would change their lives for the better. A few of them were right, even when they were lying to begin with. They beat the odds, and walked out. Some of them even went on and changed their lives, or other peoples’ lives, for the better. Not many, though. But that isn’t the point.
“The point is I’ve been thinking about that ever since I started feeling poorly. About how people deny the truth that’s in front of them. I suppose I’d seen a lot of it by the time we got married, and by the time I caught the fever I…well, I suppose I believed in what I saw more than in what I thought I knew. And I accepted that. I started believing there was a kind of magic in the world. I never questioned it again, which I suppose made a difference in my life. But now I’m standing here with an illness growing inside me, something that someone apparently chose to plant in me, and I can’t help but wonder, Gary. What would have happened if I had denied it all in the first place? Would this thing not have come into me? If I had refused the world it represents, would it have lost interest? You say your future flashes suggest I’m a target because you love me, but that makes me quite the helpless victim, and I dare anyone to call me that to my face.”
She wasn’t so much talking to herself anymore, which meant I could chuckle without making her lose her head of steam. I didn’t say nothing, though, just laughed and nodded.
Annie nodded once too, kinda sharp and brisk, and kept talking. “I chose this life, Gary. I chose the moments of madness and exhilaration that have come with discovering there are monsters beneath the bed. And if you believe there is something out there, a mastermind or an evil which wishes to destroy you because you in some way bring light into the world, then I cannot believe I’m merely auxiliary to that. I will not believe it. Even if this illness should succeed, if it kills me, it would be unforgivable for you to lay down your sword and give up the fight. So I must believe myself to be a target in my own right.”
She faced me, eyes flashing and color high in her cheeks. “And if I’m worth that much to any agent of darkness, then I am by God going to give it the fight of its life. And the fight of mine.”
Between one breath an’ the next I had her in my arms, spinning her around and kissing her through laughter. “Darlin’, I feel like I oughta be cheering. You shoulda been leading the troops, not patching them up.” I set her down again, trying not to think of how light she’d been in my arms, an’ brushed my thumbs over her cheeks. “And I guess you’re putting me in my place, too, sweetheart. Kinda arrogant of me to figure it was all about me.”
She patted my cheek. “Yes, but very male.”
I snorted an’ caught her hand to kiss her palm. “Mebbe so. You’re right, though, darlin’. Ain’t no way I’d let anything make me back down if something happened to you—which it ain’t gonna—”
Something happened around her eyes, something that told me she thought I wasn’t much of a liar, but she didn’t call me on it, so I kept going. “So I shoulda seen it myself. Maybe I didn’t getcha into this, darlin’. Maybe we got each other into it, but it don’t matter, ‘cause you’re my bright star. Would I were as steadfast as thou art—”
She laughed all of a sudden, bright an’ quick. “Why do you do that, Gary? I’ve known you almost fifty years and you’ve always used the language like you’re a big dumb hunk, and then you forget yourself and quote poetry.”
I said, “Girls like it,” as solemn as I could, and Annie laughed again.
“I know I did. I still do. But I knew your parents, Gary. Neither of them were marble-mouthed, and they both said “isn’t” instead of “ain’t”. I could understand it if they had, but it’s an affectation and it’s gotten more noticeable as you’ve gotten older.”
Still solemn, I said, “You’re only just noticin’ this now? Maybe you’re just gettin’ pickier,” and she gave me a dirty look that I smiled away. “Guess I do it more now ‘cause fares like it. It fits the persona. But I guess I started it way back in college. I learned playing ball that folks underestimate you if they think you ain’t too bright. Gives a guy a chance to learn a lot about what the other team’s thinking and doing, if they don’t worry much about chatting when you’re around. S’pose I got in the habit then and never dropped it, so I gotta pull out the poets once in a while to keep my old grey cells hopping. You want me to give it a rest?”
“Could you?”
“Prob’ly not.”
Annie smiled. “That’s all right. I do like it. And I’ve wondered on and off for years. Decades. But it’s a question—” She swallowed hard. “I suppose it’s one of those things, it’s so silly and not important, and you think you’ll always have time to ask. Now I’m afraid there’s not any time left, so…I asked.”
“We still got all the time in the world, babe.” I curled her close, wishing I could make either one of us believe me. “Silly thing to be sittin’ on for forty years, though. Got anything else that’s been bothering you?”
“I don’t know. Do I want to know the truth about Mary Lou Stravinski?”
A guffaw burst right outta me. “There’s a name I ain’t thought about in a long time. I swear to you, Annie, she fell in that mud puddle just like I said. I never thought she was gonna strip her wet dress off and hand it to me once I put my coat around her, an’ I swear to God she never managed to lay a kiss on me, even if that’s what it looked like when you walked in. I swear I was tryin’ ta get her off me—” I stopped, ‘cause Annie’s eyes were bright and her lips were pressed together like she was trying hard not to laugh. “You know alla this, doncha.”
“Yes, but it’s fun to watch you squirm. I never was really worried about that. You prefer blondes.”
“Gentlemen do. Annie. Annie, what happened back there? Up there. You knocked that crap outta yourself, and then you…” I was pretty damned sure I knew what had happened, and why, and I hated it as much as I loved my girl.