Gather the Sentient (10 page)

CHAPTER

17

ESHANTI

Saturday, September 10

Mumbai

Eshanti hated Patrick.  Not quite as much as she’d hated her deceased husband, Aarush, but close.  After hanging up from his demanding predawn phone call, she’d begun reviewing the mental inventory of reasons she had to despise him.  She added his lack of patience to the list.

She continued taking stock of their strained relationship as she picked at her breakfast, a bowl of suji upma prepared just the way she liked it with roasted rava and sautéed vegetables.  Usually she delighted in the simple pleasure of the morning meal, but today, she found her appetite was lacking.

She glanced at the clock on the wall of her Mumbai apartment, located in the penthouse of one of the city’s newest high rises.  Of course, she had Patrick to thank for her accommodations, fully-furnished with a rooftop terrace in South Mumbai, home to the city’s wealthiest inhabitants.  The apartment and everything in it was another source of frustration for Eshanti.  There was nothing she loathed more than being indebted to a man, even if that man was also a part of the Sevens Prophecy.  After Aarush’s death she had promised herself she would never become dependent on another person again, and yet, here she was.

It was just after 7am and she felt the familiar urge to perform the morning rituals of her youth.  The morning purifications, the sun worship, and the tilak and postures.  She had given up these things after her husband’s untimely passing, turning away from not only the Hindu rituals but the associated beliefs as well.

What good were gods if they couldn’t protect her from the pain of existence?

Eshanti gave up on her breakfast, and after covering the bowl in cellophane, slipped the untouched suji upma into the Sub Zero refrigerator.   She retreated to her studio, a room Patrick had insisted on setting up for her the day the apartment was procured.  There were easels and canvases scattered throughout the window-lined space, along with every imaginable production medium – oils, crayon, chalks, pencils, acrylics.  Eshanti wanted for nothing.

Nothing except the two babies Aarush had forced her to abort.

Impressions of her daughters’ faces covered the walls of the studio, etched into the drywall with a blade in much the same manner a sculptor would carve into marble with a chisel.  She assumed she’d been drawing the girls as they could have been.  As they should have been, if they’d been allowed to grow into the playful, smiling children who adorned her walls.  She crossed the room now and their eyes seemed to follow her, pleading ‘Why Amma, why?’

The illustrations of her daughters and predictions of the prophecy were born of the same psychic power.   Falling into a trancelike state, she’d first experienced automatic drawing at the age of seven, using a charcoal brick from the fire to create an image on the concrete floor of her family’s shanty, scorching the skin on her palm in the process.  She came to render the same likeness dozens of times in the years that followed, but wouldn’t realize she was drawing Patrick until he appeared at the entrance to her jail cell seventeen years later.

The day she traded one form of captivity for another.

She glided across the studio now in what had become her signature attire – a richly colored mekhela sador with the mekhela wrapped around her waist and the blouse and sador draped across her shoulders.  As requested by Patrick, she gathered the most recent landscape drawings into a pile for Javier to apport to Wesley.  Many of the mountains she’d drawn were tree covered.  Some were barren.  Others were topped with snow.  She had absolutely no idea where they were located and doubted they bore any connection to the prophecy, but it was a waste of her time to argue against Patrick on the matter.  Once his mind was made up, she knew it was better to acquiesce.

The same had been true of Aarush.  Her marriage to him had been arranged, as were many Indian marriages.  Although she’d drawn the middle-aged lines of his face for many months before their families reached an agreement, the first time she met him in person was the day before their nuptials at his parents’ house for dinner.  Even at the tender age of fifteen, she’d known immediately she could never love Aarush.  His callous demeanor, the way he refused to look her in the eye, confirmed her suspicions he sought only to possess her.  There had been no affection involved.

Which is probably why, years later, it had been so easy to push him in front of the oncoming bus.

CHAPTER

18

JOSE

Saturday, September 10

Phoenix

Andrea’s recovery was nothing short of miraculous, and Jose delighted in watching her improve, allowing himself greater access to her than he had with any other patients in the past.  It was widely known that the two had formed a friendship, so his presence was seen through the lens of familiarity.  Within hours of his intervention, he had been there as the pain began to subside and the nurses stopped administering the narcotic medication.  Now, five days later, he stood by her side as she took her first unassisted steps out of her room into the hallway.

“I would have never guessed you’d have been walking so quickly after seeing how severe your injuries were when you came in,” her nurse remarked as they turned the corner toward the courtyard.  “But here you are, walking on a hip being held together with titanium rods and pins like you’re training for a marathon.”

Andrea laughed, the first genuine laugh he’d ever heard from her.  It was bubbly, effervescent even, and worked to ease his fears.  Since the moment she’d agreed to their arrangement, he’d been waiting for her to go back on her word.  To reach out to her boyfriend, Alejandro, in some way.  But she hadn’t.

“I’m bionic now,” she told the nurse.  “I’m practically unstoppable.”  And to prove as much, she began picking up the pace.

“I’ve seen some miraculous recoveries in my time here in the ICU, and I would put yours in the top five,” the nurse continued, causing Jose’s heart to race involuntarily.  “You just never know who’s going to pull out of something and who isn’t.  There have been a couple I was convinced we were going to lose and then blam! - they’re better, seemingly overnight.”  She laughed as she raced alongside Andrea.  “Miracles of modern medicine, right Jose?”

He caught Andrea’s conspiratorial sideways glance as they rounded the final corner and prayed she wouldn’t divulge his secret to the nurse.

“We live in amazing times,” he agreed.

Once Andrea was safely ensconced in her room, the nurse scooted off, mumbling to herself about the growing list of patients in need of her care.

Andrea rolled her eyes.  “I thought she would never leave.”

“I could tell,” Jose said.  “I thought you were going to run that last stretch past the elevator bay.  You gotta slow down or someone’s going to get suspicious.  I don’t care how annoying she is.”

She shrugged.  “I was going as slow as I could.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to pretend you’re disabled?”  She extended her arms above her head, stretching like a pampered housecat.  “How much longer do you think I need to stay in here?”

He considered how the pieces of his plan had been falling into place, as if the universe wanted nothing more than for him to succeed in keeping Andrea safe.  After recovering in hours instead of weeks, she realized Jose was telling the truth about his ability to heal, and although she informed him at the time it was still ‘against her better judgement,’ she relinquished not only her boyfriend Alejandro’s name but also his address.

Jose immediately began working to procure sufficient evidence for the man’s arrest.  When he wasn’t working his shifts at the ER or visiting with Andrea in the ICU, he cloistered himself at the public library, searching online for information about the Wedgewood Chicanos.  As one of the city’s oldest gangs, there was no shortage of arrest documentation from past and present members.  He quickly discovered Alejandro had been arrested a total of three times but had never been convicted.  And although two of the arrests were for armed robbery, the third was for assault.  Based on his findings, he shared Alejandro’s name and likeness with hospital security to prevent him from gaining access to her while she was admitted.  So far, it had done the job, but now that it was almost time for him to go to the police with Andrea’s statement, he knew hospital security would be no match for Alejandro and his fellow gang members once she pressed charges.   One way or another, they would get to her if she remained in Arizona.

There was nothing more they could do but wait until sufficient time had passed as would be plausible for her to be recovered.  Then she could board her flight to his aunt’s safe house in Baltimore, and he could finally have Alejandro arrested.

“Based on the normal recoveries I’ve seen from the sort of injuries you sustained, you should be in here another ten to fourteen days.  But I think another week or so will be long enough not to raise any red flags.  You’re gonna have to keep faking it.”

Her eyes bulged out of her head in an exaggerated gesture meant to convey her extreme displeasure.  “Another week?  Are you kidding me?  Do you have any idea how bad the food is in here?”

He could only imagine how difficult it was for her to be locked away like a canary in a cage, especially when she was already fully recovered, but her complaints smacked of an ungrateful brat.  “You made a promise,” he reminded her, “to play along and not blow my cover.  And remember all the pain you were in?  You could still be recovering.  Or worse yet, you could be dead.”

She pouted, her lower lip shoved forward as she blew her hair out of her face.

Despite feeling somewhat unappreciated, knowing how miserable she was, he felt his heart soften.  “Tell you what, I’ll bring you food when I come into work from here on out,” he offered.  “Where’s your favorite spot?”

She raised an eyebrow.  “Really?”

“Yes.  Really.  Now where’s your favorite spot?”

He could tell she was mulling over her options as she chewed absentmindedly at her thumbnail.

“There’s this Thai place on the corner of 5th and Thomas.”

He thought for a moment.  “By La Paloma?”

She nodded.  “I love the number eleven – yellow curry.”

“You got it.  Yellow curry.”  He sat on the bed beside her and wondered why he was going through so much trouble for this woman he barely knew.  Beyond the food and the hours spent researching her case, he’d purchased her plane ticket with his own money and involved his aunt, potentially putting her in danger.  He had always been, at his core, a humanitarian, but going this far out on a limb was above and beyond, even for him.

It was as though he couldn’t help himself.

“Did you call my Aunt Carla and talk to her about the arrangements?” he asked.

Her shoulders slumped.  She clearly didn’t want to discuss it.  “Yes.  I called her.  She seems nice.”

“She is nice.  And she knows exactly what you’re going through.  She’ll be a good mentor.”

Andrea scowled.  “Because what I need is another person in my life telling me what to do.”

“Maybe you do.  If that somebody can keep you alive.”  He could feel his blood pressure rising the way it always did when Andrea seemed incapable of listening to reason.  He took a slow, deep breath and had begun counting backwards from ten when she placed her hand gently on his thigh.

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “I know I’m being a real pain, especially considering all you’ve done for me.”  There was no sarcasm in her voice.  Only pain.  “It’s hard though, always depending on someone else.  Knowing I clearly can’t take care of myself.”

He leaned into her.  “You can totally take care of yourself.  And Carla will teach you how.  If you let her.”  He remembered what a great mother Carla had always been to his cousins.  After being granted full custody of them in the divorce proceedings, she’d given them a solid upbringing in Baltimore, full of love and security.  In fact, it was a point of contention between him and his own mother that all three of Carla’s boys were in college – two of them on full-ride scholarships.  They were a constant reminder that even though he graduated from high school with a 4.2 GPA, he’d chosen a technical school over academia.  Regardless of his own situation, he had no doubt his Aunt Carla could reset Andrea’s course in the right direction.

She picked at the Band-Aid protecting where her IV had been inserted just below her elbow earlier in the week.  “She said she’s already got a job at a temp agency waiting for me.  And she wants me to go with her to this support group for abused women.”  Her voiced hitched on the word ‘abused,’ and it was almost as if she wanted to gnaw it away as she bit her bottom lip. 

“Sounds like a good idea to me.”

“Of course it does, to someone who’s got it all figured out.”  She nudged into his shoulder with her own and grinned.  “I’m starting to figure you out, Jose.  Tell me though, what happens when the clock strikes midnight?  Do you turn into a field mouse and do I go back to being Cinderella?  Or an ugly stepsister?  Or something worse?”

He draped an arm around her shoulder.  “I promise you nothing bad is going to happen.  It’s all going to be okay.”