Touched by Walter Mosley

Author:Walter Mosley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2023-10-03T18:22:03+00:00

There were two single beds set against opposite walls in Celestine’s room. She had asked for the pair of smaller beds in lieu of a larger one because she often had friends sleep over and this was a good way to accommodate her social tendencies. Seal was unconscious on her side and Brown was out cold on the visitor’s cot.

On a small table that Tessa had dragged between the two beds was her old medical bag from when she did a stint as a nurse for Doctors without Borders. I had convinced her to take this job after she got her nursing degree. When she returned, she told me that she loved me because my passion for her set her free rather than limiting her to what everyone else expected.

Next to the table was a pink padded chair that Seal used to sit in front of her blue vanity.

Tessa gestured at the chair and I sat obediently.

From the bag she took out two sealed packages containing single-use hypodermics. As she severed the packages with a scalpel, Tessa spoke.

“You saved my life, Marty,” she said. “I know I always let you think that I was happy to get with a man that I could throw around in the bed, that I could make him feel like there was no coming down. But none of that was true . . .” She took out the first injection device and looked at me. “You risked your life to take me away, and all you did was tell me how much you were learning. It was on that holiday I knew that I could be somebody and not somebody’s dog.”

She reached into the bag and took out a small bottle of liquid and a cotton ball.

“Roll up your left sleeve, baby,” she said, “and swab down the skin just above the crook of the arm.”

“Why did Seal faint?” I asked while doing what I was told.

“I crushed three sleeping pills and put them in her cocoa.”

“Why?”

She grasped my forearm and expertly drew the blood. Then she went over to Celestine’s bed and injected her in the hip. My daughter’s lips parted and her eyes opened. She looked right at me but I don’t think she saw anything.

“Once more,” my wife said.

She approached me with the second needle and I held out a hand to stop her.

“What?” she asked.

“We haven’t discussed this,” I said. “We always talk about things, Tess. That’s something we agreed on way back in the beginning.”

“Words are what humans use because they have lost or maybe they never had the talent for knowing,” she said. This phrase seemed familiar but I couldn’t remember where it had come from. “You gave me your blood, baby. Everything is in that. The dogs have been loosed on the world and you might be the only one who can save us—leaf and fin, scale and mind.”

“But I don’t remember.”

“Give me your right arm.”

She took more blood and then said, “Hold Brown down while I inject him.

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.