Because standing there beside the bed, looking down at Jesse's prone body, was . . .
Jesse.
I looked from one Jesse to the other, not quite believing what I was seeing.
But it was true. There were two Jesses, the dead one and the live one.
Or, I suppose it would have been more correct to say the dead one and the dying one.
"J-Jesse?" I swiped at the tears coating my cheeks with the back of my smoky sleeve.
But Jesse wasn't looking at me. He was staring down at . . . well, at himself, on the bed.
"Susannah," he whispered. "What . . . what did you do?"
I was so overjoyed to see him, I wasn't thinking straight. I went to him and grabbed his hand.
"Jesse, I went. Back through time, I mean," I babbled.
He tore his gaze from the tigure on the bed and focused all of that intense dark gaze on me. He didn't look too happy.
"You went?" He glared at me. "You went after Slater? After I told you I could take care of myself?"
He was furious. I was so happy to see that fury, however, that I let out a little burble of laughter. I didn't realize, then, what seeing him here in the hospital meant.
"You did take care of yourself," I assured him. "I-I told you - the past you - about Diego, and he didn't kill you, Jesse. You killed him. But then . . . then . . . there was a fire." I swallowed, not feeling like laughing anymore. "In the barn. The O'Neils' barn . . ."
His eyes narrowed.
"The O'Neils," he murmured. He appeared to be in as much of a daze as I was. "I remember them."
"Yes," I said. "There was a fire, and Jesse . . . Jesse, you saved me. Or, at least, you tried to. But . . . but . . ."
My voice trailed off. Jesse had dropped my hand. He was moving closer to the bed, looking down at the body that lay there, barely breathing.
"I don't understand," Jesse said. "How did this happen?"
I bit my lip. There was no time for explanations. Not when, any minute, I knew we were going to have to be saying good-bye . . .
"I did it," I blurted. "I didn't mean to. I meant to save you, Jesse, not . . . not this. But I was still touching you when I shifted back to the future, and you . . . you just got caught."
Jesse finally looked at me like he was really seeing me, maybe for the first time since he'd come into the room.
"You really went back?" He stared at me. "To the past? My past?"
I nodded. What was there to say?
He shook his head. "And Paul? I went to the basilica to look for him, but he was gone. You followed him?"
I nodded again.
"I wanted to stop him," I said. "From . . . from keeping you from dying. But in the end . . . I couldn't, Jesse. It wasn't right. What Diego did to you. I couldn't let it happen again. So I told you. And you killed him. You killed Diego. But then there was the fire and . . ." I looked down at the figure in the bed. I couldn't stifle a sob. "And now I think this is good-bye. I'm sorry, Jesse. I'm so, so sorry."
My vision clouded over again with tears. I couldn't believe any of this was happening. I had always thought of my "gift" as a curse, but never, never had I hated it as much as I did just then. I wished I had never heard of mediators. I wished I had never seen a single ghost. I wished I had never been born.
Then I felt Jesse's hand on my cheek.
"Querida," he said.
He placed his other hand on the bed to balance himself as he leaned across it to kiss me. One last kiss before he was ripped from me forever. I closed my eyes, anticipating the feel of those cool lips against mine. Good-bye, Jesse. Goodbye.
His mouth had barely touched mine, however, when I heard him gasp. He jerked his head from mine and looked down.
His hand had touched his living body's leg.
Something seemed to jolt through him, then. He flared more brightly for a second, his gaze on mine more intense than it had ever been in all the time I'd known him.
And then he was sucked down into his body, like smoke pulled into a fan.
And was gone.
Oh his body was still there. But the ghost of Jesse - the ghost I had loved - was gone. In his place was. . . .
Nothing. I reached out, desperate to grab some small piece of him, but my hand clutched only air.
Jesse was gone. He was truly gone. He was back inside the body he'd left so long ago . . . the body that, even as I watched, shuddered all over as if to reject the soul that had just entered it. . . .
Then went still as death.
I knew then what had happened. Jesse's body had come forward through time, yes. But not his soul, because two of the same souls could not exist in the same dimension. Jesse's body had been without a soul just as, for so many years, Jesse's soul had been without a body.
Now the two were united at last. . . .
But too late. And now I was going to lose them both.
I don't know how long I must have stood there, holding Jesse's hand, gazing down at him in utter despair. Long enough, I know, that Father Dominic came back, and said, "Don't worry, Susannah, it's all taken care of. Jesse will get the tests he needs."
"It doesn't matter," I murmured, still holding his hand . . . his cold hand.
"Don't give up hope, Susannah," Father Dominic said. "Never give up hope."
I let out a bitter laugh. "And why is that, Father D?"
"Because it's all we have, you know." He placed a hand on my shoulder. "You did what you did because you loved him, Susannah. You loved him enough to let him go. There's no greater gift you could have given him."
I shook my head, my vision still blurred with tears.
"That's not how it's supposed to go, Father Dominic."
"What's not, Susannah?" he asked gently.
"The saying. It's supposed to be, If you love something, set it free. If it was meant to be, it will come back to you. Don't you know? Haven't you read it?"
When I looked up at Father Dominic to see what he thought of this, I saw that he wasn't even looking at me. He was staring down at Jesse on the bed. Father Dominic's blue eyes, I noticed, were as tear-filled as my own.
"Susannah," he said in a strangled voice. "Look."
I looked. And as I moved my head, felt the fingers of the hand I was holding suddenly tighten around mine.
Color that hadn't been there a minute before had flooded Jesse's face. His face was no longer the same color as the sheets. His skin was the same olive tone it had been when I'd first seen him, back in the O'Neils' barn.
And that wasn't all. His chest was rising and falling visibly now beneath the blanket that covered him. A pulse thrummed visibly in his neck.
And, as I stood there, staring down at him, his eyelids lifted . . .
. . . and I was falling, as hard as I did every time he looked at me, into the deep dark pools that were Jesse's eyes . . eyes that weren't just seeing me, but knew me. Knew my soul.
He lifted the hand I wasn't clutching, plucked aside the oxygen mask that had been covering his nose and mouth, and said just one word.
But it was a word that set my heart singing.
"Querida."
Chapter twenty-one
"Suze!"
I heard my mothers voice calling from downstairs.
"Suze!"
I was sitting at my dressing table, admiring my blowout. CeeCee and I had spent the afternoon getting our hair and nails done. CeeCee hadn't needed a blow-out . . . her white-blonde hair is straight on its own. But she'd gotten an updo, then fretted all afternoon that it wouldn't hold.
My blow-out, however, apparently had staying power, because my hair looked as dark and shimmery as it had when I'd stepped from the salon.
"Suze!" my mom called a third and final time.
I glanced at the clock. I'd made him wait nearly five minutes. That seemed long enough.
"Coming," I yelled and grabbed my evening bag and the filmy white stole that went with my dress.