Heartlight by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Author:Marion Zimmer Bradley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, Contemporary, Fiction
ISBN: 9781466819177
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2003-11-17T05:00:00+00:00

SAN FRANCISCO, JANUARY 1973

Some random truths he can impart, —

The harvest of a quiet eye,

That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

— WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

THE HARSH, DRUGGED BREATHING OF THE MAN IN THE BED WAS THE

loudest sound in the room. Colin sat in the uncomfortable chair beside the bed, watching Simon sleep.

His face was swathed in bandages, both eyes covered. Just after the accident, the doctors had been sure he'd lose his sight. Now they thought they'd be able to save at least the right eye, but Simon Anstey would never again be cover-model handsome.

Disfigurement was bad, and blindness would have been worse, but it was not the most terrible injury that Simon had sustained in the accident.

Automatically, Colin's gaze strayed to Simon's left hand. It, too, was swathed in bandages, held immobile in a brace to keep him from flexing it.

The doctors had wanted to amputate, but Simon would not give them permission. He'd been hysterical—Colin could well imagine the scene—refusing opiates, refusing to let the doctors touch him unless they would promise to leave his hand alone. If he had not been a fixture in the Bay Area community for so many years they might not have listened to him, but everyone in that emergency room had known Simon Anstey, who soloed with the San Francisco Symphony and taught at the conservatory.

He'd held them off until Alison had gotten there, and only after he'd extracted her promise to help him did he allow the doctors to begin their work. And Alison had kept her promise, fighting the doctors until they had given in, refusing to consider the possibility of amputation.

They had worked miracles, but though Simon's hand was intact, no one thought he would ever use it again. The bones of two fingers were crushed, the delicate nerves destroyed. Though someday he might lift a cup to his lips with his left hand, it was unthinkable that he would ever regain the fine control over it that a concert musician required. His career—his life —was over.

He was twenty-nine years old.

This is my fault. Though he knew it smacked of hubris, Colin could not shake that conviction. Somehow, he thought, if he had been stronger, if he had not surrendered to temptation to act without sanction . . .

If that is so, then this, too, is part of your punishment, Colin had told himself inexorably.

The door to the hospital room opened.

"How is he?" Alison said in a whisper.

"Still sleeping," Colin answered softly. Alison tiptoed into the room and seated herself in a chair on the other side of the bed. She was haggard and drawn, looking every day of her seventy-four years even in the soft January light.

"If only I'd been with him," she said.

"Then you'd be dead, too, just like the girl who was with him," Colin pointed out.

"Damn all drunk drivers to hell," Alison said with quiet venom. The driver who had killed Simon's passenger and ended his performing life had walked away from the collision without a scratch, as drunk drivers almost always did.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.