The Wish of Xmas Present by N.D. Jones

Author:N.D. Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kuumba Publishing
Published: 2018-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

Fifteen Years Earlier

The minute the surgeon walked into the family waiting room, face washed-out and eyes red, Sky knew what he’d say. She didn’t rush from her chair over to the doctor the way her grandmother, aunt, and uncle did. She didn’t listen to his soft, heartfelt words of apology and regret, the way her two cousins did. Her knees didn’t give way at the news. She didn’t nearly fall to the floor, the way her grandmother did, her uncle’s supportive arms catching his mother but not his own tears.

Sky sat there, weighed down by the crushing knowledge of her mother’s death. She couldn’t be gone. They were supposed to go out to dinner tonight and take in a movie. She’d arrived home for spring break two days ago. After midterms, she’d been looking forward to sleeping late, hanging out with friends, and catching up with her mother.

“I’m sorry,” she heard the doctor say. “I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

He was sorry? For her loss? How many times, after failing to save the life of a patient, had the doctor uttered those same words? How many times did he have to walk from an operating room, knowing what he had to say would destroy a stranger’s world? How did he sleep at night and get up the next morning, only to do it again and with no assurance another patient wouldn’t die under his hands and urgent care?

How did he cope with the loss of life and his powerlessness to defeat death when it neared and challenged him for supremacy?

Sky’s heart raced with a sharp pain. Sight blurred. Mouth dried. Body tensed, and head throbbed. People kept talking to her, touching her. Her soul leaked from her body, slithered away from her petrified form and out toward the hallway and light. If she followed, would her soul lead her to Sade’s? Or would it find a corner and hide in the darkness of its depleted rays of hope. Her misery was too deep and forbidding, a life without Sade too vast and frightening to contemplate, her soul too puny to cope and her heart in complete distress.

Sky rose, and the hands holding her slipped away. The voice in her ear was familiar but not the one she craved.

“Sky, are you listening to me?” Sade would ask when Sky’s mind got lost in a book or fixated on a problem. “Stay on this plane of existence with the rest of us,” she’d say. “Don’t travel to the stars and forget about me.”

“Are you listening to me?” Uncle Kenny asked. “I said wait for me here. I need to get your mother’s possessions then I’ll drive everyone home.”

Not stay there while I get your mother but stay while I claim whatever belongings Sade had on her when she’d been rushed into the emergency room. Uncle Kenny couldn’t bring Sade home. They would have to leave her there. By herself in the sterile, cold hospital with people who neither knew nor loved her.

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.