Authors: Sally John
No, not a stranger. Rather to a woman ripped from her cocoon in a safety zone called Topala.
* * *
Sheridan found Luke not far from the restroom, his knapsack and her luggage at his feet. Weaving her way through scurrying throngs, she approached him.
“Luke, I can’t do this.”
“I know.”
Sheridan blinked back tears that had begun stinging in the restroom.
“I’ll do it for you.”
She shook her head. Good grief, that was the last thing she needed. “I have to go back.”
“To what?”
“My cocoon.” The more she thought about the image, the more she liked it. Soft, warm, cozy. Safe. No man to remind her how lonely she was. “My Topala cocoon.”
“It’s not there anymore.”
His words hit her like a physical blow to her chest. “I don’t like you.”
“Understood. But, Sheridan, the hardest part is over. It really is.” He cocked his head, his forehead creased. “Think of what you’ve just accomplished. After all these months hidden away, you’ve taken your first step back into a crowded city, back into the real world. You’re over the big hump. The next step will be a breeze. LAX? Not a problem. Now, it’s time to go.”
In one swift motion he picked up his knapsack, slung it over a shoulder, and scooped her bag into his hand. He touched her elbow, pointed to a sign, and began to walk, long strides that moved him quickly away from her.
The whole scene reeked of déjà vu. . . .
* * *
It was ten days or so after the shooting. Sheridan and Luke were at the airport in Miami, in some sort of private VIP room. They waited to board a flight to Houston, where they would meet up with Eliot. He had stabilized at the hospital in Caracas, and now the United States government wanted him closer to home.
“Why can’t I go with him?” she blabbered at a feverish pitch, the cast on her arm a constant weight that added to her distress. With each breath she could have sworn a bone sliver from a rib punctured her insides. “I don’t understand. I just don’t understand.”
Luke said something, but she couldn’t make out the words.
It had been impossible to focus since the nightmare erupted. Her own screaming from that day still echoed in her ears, drowning out others’ speech. Adrenaline pounded throughout her body, unabated bursts of energy that kept her awake and frenetic around the clock. She was truly aware of only two things: her proximity to Eliot and an incessant
God, wake him up! Wake him up!
And now
they
—those powers that stood hidden like the wizard of Oz behind a curtain, pulling the strings that directed their lives—
they
decided that she would not travel with him.
Luke spoke again. At times when the words were lost, his tone got through to her. Its quiet, calming insistence centered her momentarily.
She stopped yammering and turned her energy to clawing at the heavy, wrist-to-shoulder cast as if she could remove it. Two bones were broken, snapped when she landed forcefully on them on the flagstones.
Luke pointed toward a door and leaned in, his nose nearly touching hers. “It’s time to go.” He touched her good wrist.
“Now.”
She watched his retreating back as he opened the door and walked through it. He strode into a crowded hallway. The door swished shut.
A terror seized her, a primal fear that obliterated the nightmare of the shooting. This was something far worse, too awful for words.
Sheridan raced out the door. “Luke! Luke!” She screamed his name again and again at the passing throng that had swallowed him from sight. “Luke!”
And then he was beside her. She trembled, violent spasms that shook her from his embrace. He drew her back in, tightening his hold.
“Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!”
“I won’t, Sher. I promise I won’t. . . .”
* * *
Sheridan shook her head, flinging off the memory of that day in the Miami airport. It was a unique moment in time that would never be repeated. And yet . . .
That nameless, debilitating panic pounced again, its tendrils encircling her throat as Luke walked away in the Mazatlán airport. She had no choice. She raced after him.
“Luke! Luke!”
He turned.
What was she doing? What was going on? What was
wrong
with her?
She hurried down the corridor, by now hyperventilating. The crowd swirled around her. Blackness crept along the edges of her vision.
“Sher, what is it?”
She grabbed his free hand with both of hers. The touch of another human being eased the panic.
“What is it?” he asked again.
“Just don’t leave me,” she said. “Please.”
He gently squeezed her hand. “I won’t. I promise I won’t.”
Chicago
“Aargh.” Calissa closed her cell phone and resisted the urge to smash it against her desktop.
A deep chuckle resounded from behind her.
She turned. “Shut up.”
Bram Carter let loose with a guffaw, his mouth a perfect oval in the middle of a full, pearl-white beard. “‘Aargh’? From the silver-tongued pixie herself?”
She spread her arms in a gesture of defeat. “I am completely out of words.”
“Come here, darling.”
Calissa wondered if she let Bram get away with
pixie
because her heart thrummed whenever
darling
resonated in his rich baritone.
Moving around the desk, she carefully laid the phone on it and stepped into his waiting embrace. She sighed. His chest always reminded her of an extra-firm, king-size pillow. If she could replicate it, somehow encase the rhythmic beating of a strong metronome in soft broadcloth and silky lapels, and get the patent, she could buy a Caribbean island and retire.
“So.” His voice rumbled in her ear. “What did your spy have to say?”
“They’re at LAX. Oh, I wish we’d found them a direct flight to Chicago. Sheridan is an absolute basket case.”
“Define
basket case
.”
“Blubbery. Clingy.”
“Sounds like a surefire guarantee she’s not going anywhere by herself. A clingy Sheridan will get here, as long as the one she adheres to stays on task.”
“He will. But, my golly! She’s forty years old. She’s worth a fortune in Montgomery money. She’s not tied down to work. Her husband almost died a
year and a half
ago. How long does PTSD last, anyway?” Calissa leaned back and looked up at Bram.
The light reflected in his bottomless eyes the color of burnt coffee. “You think that’s it? Post-trauma symptoms from the shooting?”
“My sister is not a flake. What else could it be?”
“You said she had professional help.”
“At the hospital. Since then, I don’t know what she’s been up to. Traynor said they’ve been living in a tiny Mexican village. It didn’t sound like the sort of place where therapists make a living.”
“We can’t imagine how much Sheridan has going on still, even after all this time.”
Calissa studied his face. It was handsome in its mature lines, surrounded by a halo of neatly trimmed thick hair the same color as his beard, both prematurely white. She said, “What do you mean, how much she has going on?”
“Darling, in case you haven’t noticed, you sisters grew up in a most unconventional environment. She must sense from your note that the past is about to turn a deeper shade of bizarre.”
“Meaning,
of course
she’s a basket case at this time.”
Bram kissed the tip of her nose. “Of course.”
“And where am I on the loony scale? One to ten. She’s a twelve. I’m a what?”
“A woman who can’t commit to marriage.”
She groaned and buried her face in his tie, anticipating his question, the one he asked at least once a month.
“Calissa, will you marry me after the funeral?”
After the funeral?
She tensed, willing herself not to whip back a few steps.
After the funeral
was a twist on the proposal that never included a time frame. Was this an ultimatum? Was he finally getting tired of asking?
Abram Carter was everything she could wish for in a husband. He was her best friend, had been for eons. He was in no way threatened by an independent woman. Not that money was all that important, but he had plenty and then some. He was unattached; his ex hadn’t bothered him in over a decade. There were no children. He had meaningful work, which he never allowed to consume him. He was tall enough that she could add three-inch heels to her five-nine frame and not see the crown of his head. And with her, he had the patience of Job.
Would that continue?
She smoothed his tie, a splash of pastels that only he could get away with wearing at serious board meetings with Chicago’s muckety-mucks. “Um.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t know.”
She didn’t know?
She didn’t know?
Where had that come from? Her monthly reply was never
“I don’t know!”
It was always, always
“Not now.”
“Hm,” he said.
Evidently he noticed her different answer too.
She waited. The moments ticked by, and he said no more.
Smart man.
Los Angeles airport
Luke stuffed his knapsack in an overhead compartment and lowered himself into the luxurious first-class seat next to Sheridan’s. “You okay?”
She moved sideways until her upper arm rested against his. “Yes.”
His tiny smile conveyed empathy. “I am sorry it’s so hard.”
“If you hadn’t come . . .” Oh, why bother? He was there. She was a mess. End of story.
“If I hadn’t come,” he said, “then your sister would have contacted the State Department and all sorts of people would be involved. NPR would do a blurb on the curious life of Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery.
Newsweek
would send a photographer. Late-night hosts would make jokes.”
“I thought Calissa
did
contact the State Department.”
“No. I wrote my cell phone number on my State Department card.” He paused. “Just in case of a situation exactly like this one, when you needed to be contacted quickly and discreetly.”
“If you hadn’t come, I’d be at home.”
The lights dimmed in the cabin. He said, “You need to buckle up.”
She did so, managing to keep her shoulder against his arm through the process, loathing her need to touch him, to reassure herself that the angel had not deserted her.
The sense of déjà vu washed over her yet again. She was right back where she’d been a year and a half ago, scared absolutely witless. Or was it fear? Maybe it was simply the abruptness of it all. She hadn’t been away from Eliot’s side in so long. Suddenly he was gone and it was Luke beside her.
She said, “You know, I’ve been within shouting distance of Eliot for a long time now, 24-7. If he whistles, I can hear him from anywhere in Topala. If he could whistle, that is. Which he can’t. He can’t shout either, for that matter. We have a cowbell.”
“He’ll be fine. He’s a strong man, inside if not outside. You’ve left him in good hands.”
“I’m talking about me.” She shivered. “He’s the fixed point in my life. My universe revolves around him, measured in yards, by an hour or two at a time. I’m not just there for him. He’s there for me. We have nothing else, no one else.”
“Sounds like an ingrown toenail.” Luke reached above her and turned a knob until the flow of stale air stopped hitting her in the face. “You were going to have to cut it out sooner or later. Think of this trip as necessary surgery. It’s painful now, but you’ll both recover and be healthier for it in the end.”
“We were fine.”
“Sher—Sheridan, you were not fine.” His exasperated voice was too low for other passengers to hear. “If you were missionaries, maybe you’d be fine. I mean, who lives like you two do, in the middle of the Dark Ages where you can’t even get phone service?”
She shut her eyes as if that would tune him out.
“But you’re not missionaries, are you? You’re not even ambassadors spreading goodwill. You’re just two scared ostriches with your heads buried in the sand. You think you can avoid more pain. Believe it or not, you are inflicting it upon yourselves because you can’t keep inhaling that sand and stay alive for long.”
She felt movement, heard the unclick of his seat belt, and looked up to see him spring to his feet. He yanked open an overhead bin and rummaged in it.
“Sir!” a flight attendant shouted from her own seat at the end of the aisle. “Sir! You have to stay seated!”
Sheridan realized the plane was gaining speed. People craned their necks to see what Luke was doing.
“Sir!” she screamed now.
He waved a blanket for all to see, slammed the bin shut, and plopped back down, all in one swift motion. “You look cold.”
“Thanks.” She took the blanket from him and spread it on her lap.
“I’m sorry. It’s really none of my business.”
She met his eyes, lit by the reading light above him. They were more green than gray.
She remembered the first time she had noticed a change in their color. It was in Houston, at the hospital. He had come into the waiting area and handed her a small paper bag. She reached inside and pulled out the old red cobbled leather Bible with onionskin, gilt-edged pages, its language Spanish. In the bottom right corner in fading gold letters was
Ysabel Maria Cole
.
“It got shipped to the storage unit,” he had said.
After the shooting, she never returned to her beautiful home in Caracas. Security said it was too dangerous. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to leave Eliot’s side anyway.
One of the perks of being an amby’s wife was having a large staff. Luke contacted those people she’d grown to love over the five years many of them had spent with her. They packed her and Eliot’s things, shipping most of them to a storage unit in Virginia where, again,
they
took care of it all. One trusted assistant, a native Venezuelan, had chosen personal items that Sheridan needed. Those were in the bags sent immediately to the Caracas hospital. More of her things arrived later in Houston. With such upheaval, it was easy to see how one Bible had been missed.