Shelly's Second Chance (The Wish Granters, Book One) (19 page)

“Will you walk
with me?” she asked Alanna. “I think I could use the fresh air and exercise,
but I really don’t want to walk alone.”

“If you were
going back to the hospital why did you get the chips?” Alanna asked with some
surprise.

“It was a test. I
guess I just wanted to know I could pass it,” Shelly said softly. “I think I’ve
always wanted one of these blue bags, you know? Don’t you think it looks like
something in a fairy story? Like just having it would give you magical powers.”

“Joe thought you
were going to . . .”

“I came pretty
close, didn’t I? He was right. That’s what I intended to do.” She gave a little
laugh that sounded more like a sob. “Where is he, anyway?”

“An excellent
question,” Alanna said. “It looks like the walk to the hospital is just going
to be a girls’ trip. Which might be better, come to think of it. I don’t want
to be alone either.”

“Really? That’s
weird. I didn’t know angels ever got lonely.”

“Angels?” Alanna
asked sharply. “Is that what you think I am?”

“Okay what word
should I use?”

“Just call me a
friend,” Alanna said, ashamed that just minutes earlier she had been ready to
dismiss Shelly as childish. The girl had a way of seeing through to the heart
of things. “And you’re right. That does look like a magic bag.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

“What do you
remember about your past life?” Shelly asked. They were about halfway to the
hospital and, as they walked, Alanna had described as much as she could about
the up above place and the mission she and Joe appeared to be on.

“It comes back in
pieces. I’m pretty sure I was body surfing when I died. Or at least in the
water, and I think it was Florida. So that’s one thing and then when we were
flying out here, I had the feeling I’d been in first class before. Clue number
two. Then I tried on a diamond ring in a jewelry store and had such a strong
reaction I almost passed out. Being in the hospital really upset me too because
I had this sense I’d been in a bed surrounded by doctors and nurses and
everyone was being really kind to me.”

“Like you’d been
in an accident?” Shelly asked. She pushed her hair back and there were beads of
perspiration on her lip. Alanna wondered if the walk had been such a good idea.
Getting out and moving around seemed to be helping them both, but the Vegas
heat was punishing and Shelly looked flushed and exhausted. And there was no
telling what kind of news was waiting for her back at the hospital.

“You know, I
don’t think it was an accident, but I’m not sure why I’m saying this. It’s all
just impressions. And then in the gift shop, I picked up this little stuffed
toy, one of the really soft ones like you put in a crib and it felt like I . .
. ”

“Do you think you
lost a baby?”

“Lost a . . . ”

“Like a
miscarriage?”

“Maybe. There was
blood, and I . . . ” Suddenly the heat began to get to Alanna as well. The
sidewalk in front of her seemed to shimmer and vibrate and Shelly grabbed her
arm.

“Are you okay?
It’s awfully hot out here. Maybe we can find a cab.”

“No, I’m okay.
But you’re right. That’s exactly what happened. I do remember. I had a
miscarriage and went to the hospital because I lost a lot of blood and needed a
transfusion. I remember.” She said it quietly. The memory was not the surprise
she thought it was going to be.

“Because you had
a surfing accident.”

“No. That was
later. I was living in Florida and surfing after the miscarriage.” Things
seemed to be clearing up fast.

“Good,” Shelly
said intently. They had stopped walking and were staring at each other face to
face. “It’s coming back. Was your husband with you?”

“It was an
engagement ring, not a wedding band.”

“Okay, so you had
a fiancé,” Shelly said. “Who was he? What did he look like?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think. Imagine
yourself at the hospital. Was he standing by the bed?”

They stood for a
moment in silence, people streaming past them. The crowds of the Vegas strip
—
tourists,
bikers, hotel workers, cops.

“No,” Alanna
finally said. “He wasn’t at the hospital.”

Shelly frowned. “What
sort of fiancé wouldn’t be at the hospital if you’d just lost a baby?”

“A fiancé who
never knew I was pregnant.” Alanna shot Shelly a sidelong glance. “Don’t bother
asking me why I didn’t tell him, because I don’t have an answer to that one. It
doesn’t make any sense. So I’m engaged, and the guy is . . .”

“Rich,” Shelly
said promptly.

“What makes you
say that?”

“You were used to
first class. You didn’t seem impressed with my suite and you seemed to know all
about fancy hotels.”

“Yes, I did,
didn’t I?” Alanna said. “So I’m engaged to someone who’s rich or maybe I have a
job that gives me certain kinds of perks. And I get pregnant but I don’t tell
him. When I miscarry I’m all by myself, which is why everyone was being so
nice. They felt sorry for me. And the next thing I know I’m surfing in Florida, out alone in waves big enough to drown me. It just doesn’t all fit together.”

“Sure it does,”
Shelly said. “He wasn’t the man you were supposed to marry.”

“What are you
talking about?”

“That’s why you
never told him you were pregnant,” Shelly said with confidence, taking Alanna’s
arm as they began to walk again. “Because a baby would have tied you to him
forever, and you knew you were engaged to the wrong guy.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Ben’s eyes fluttered open and
then clamped shut. If Shelly hadn’t been standing right by his bed she would
have missed it. The first thing he saw was Shelly’s face. He couldn’t smile or
talk because of the ventilator tube down his throat and taped across his face
and he didn’t yet have control of his muscles. His eyes opened, closed again,
and then opened for good.

The nurse watched the monitor
and wrote something on his chart. Then she came over and leaned down.

“Welcome back, Mr. Albertson.
You’re doing fine and dandy. Everything looks good. Doctor Ramirez will be in
shortly to get you off the ventilator.”

Ben blinked. Shelly took his
hand. He squeezed her fingers weakly and a tear slid out of his left eye.
Shelly reached out and brushed it off.

“It’s okay, Benji. I’m here.
You did fine. Really fine,” she said, raising her voice so that he could hear
her against the rhythmic whooshing of the ventilator, that sounded not anything
like human breathing but mechanical like a ship’s engine deep in the hold.

Ben’s eyebrows lifted in an
arc as if he was trying to ask a question. Before Shelly could say anything Dr.
Ramirez bustled in with a big smile on his face.

“Well, well, glad to see you
awake Ben. How are you feeling?”

It was completely rhetorical,
the kind of question doctors asked when they knew perfectly well the patient
couldn’t answer, like having a mouth full of cotton rolls and saliva suckers
and the dentist asks about your trip to Guatemala.

“Okay so we’re going to
remove the intubation tube that’s helping you breathe.” The doctor gloved up
and leaned over Ben’s head. He nodded to the nurse, who stood next to him.
“Ben, when I say so, I want you to cough for me. Okay, now.”

Ben coughed as well as he
could and the doctor pulled the tube out. It was longer than Shelly thought it
would be. The machine kept breathing but Ben coughed again and then took a deep
breath and was on his own. The nurse gently pulled the tape away from his face
and the whole apparatus was out and gone. Just like that, Ben was back among
the living.

“You’re going to have a sore
throat. We’ll give you something for that. And it will be hard to talk for a
bit, like you’ve had a bad case of laryngitis. But nothing permanent. Right now
I’d like for you to drink some water.” He motioned to the nurse who held a cup
with a straw for Ben. He sucked at it once, winced, and then stopped. The nurse
put it back on the bedside table.

Shelly held Ben’s hand, their
fingers intertwined. A week ago she never would have expected to feel so
protective of him. It was odd, this wish granting. Odd that she had simultaneously
received exactly what she’d wished for and things she never would have chosen.
And yet, what she would never have chosen had brought her a feeling of purpose,
and getting what she’d wished for had left her feeling sad. Ben looked at her
and raised his eyebrows again and then tried to talk. His voice came out like
sandpaper.

“Was it . . .” his raspy
voice faded. Even two words was too enormous an effort to sustain.

Dr. Ramirez adjusted the
stethoscope draped around his neck like some double-tailed snake, folded his
arms, and told Ben almost word for word what he had explained to Shelly
earlier. There were other words, however, and Shelly clung to each one.
Contained. Radiation. Chemotherapy. Rehabilitation. Curable.

But of all the words in the
world, that was the only one that really mattered.

At the word “cancer,” Ben
turned his head away and closed his eyes and it was impossible to tell if he
heard anything else. He released Shelly’s hand and his arm went limp on the
bed. There was nothing else to say. It would take time.

*****

They said it was perfectly
normal for Ben to nod off again. They were still giving him some mild drugs to
bring him around slowly. Shelly waited until his breathing became deeper and
more regular, thinking how the sounds of normal sleep were so sweetly different
from the awful mechanical rasp of that machine. The doctor had said Ben had a
long way to go but that he was optimistic for an eventual full recovery and
that they should be, too. “Eventual” he had said meaningfully, nodding toward
Shelly as he said that particular word, and she had understood his meaning. Ben
would need her help for a long, long time.

The visiting time was over. The
nurses would be monitoring Ben minute by minute and until the next visiting
window, Shelly knew what she had to do. She pushed up from the chair, kissed
Ben’s forehead and slipped out the door and marched straight to the chapel where
she’d knelt only a few hours before with the distraught woman, praying for her
child.

But Shelly had noticed
something in the chapel among all the flowers and pictures of streams and
oceans. A donation box. Donation boxes were all over Vegas. She had seen them
in the casino, in restaurants, even at the airport. They were like the wishing
wells you see in a mall, where people throw in their pennies and workers rake
them out every week, giving the spare change to charity. The Vegas donation
boxes took money, of course, but they also took chips. So that a gambler with a
big win could tithe a little right on the spot. Someone who found a few final
chips in a pocket or purse before boarding the flight home could give a little
something back to the city of Vegas.

Shelly knew all about charity
and collection boxes. Her mother never missed a Sunday and had always, even though
their own family had always been struggling, managed to find a few dollars to
give to the church. This particular box in the chapel had read simply FOR
PATIENTS IN NEED.

Patients in need. There were
so many. People who didn’t have Wish Granters.

Shelly stopped at the door
and took a deep breath, then pushed it open. The chapel was empty, dim, and
quiet. Everything exactly as she remembered it. Shelly stood before the box and
said a prayer, speaking the words out loud like she hadn’t done since she was a
child. The prayer was short, but perhaps the most heartfelt she’d ever made.

Thank you for saving Ben.
Please let the little girl be okay, too. Help this money find its way to her.
She needs it most.

Shelly opened her purse. Ever
since her cell phone had been shut off for lack of payment, she’d started
carrying around a little note pad. She ripped out a piece of paper and wrote in
all caps: PLEASE DONATE THESE $10,000 CHIPS TO THE FAMILY WITH THE LITTLE GIRL
WHO WAS IN A CAR ACCIDENT ON 4/22

She tore the paper off the
pad and rummaged around for an envelope. She’d been carrying her credit card
bill around for three weeks and still hadn’t opened it. She slit the top open
carefully without tearing it and took out the invoice and replaced it with the note.

I hope Ben agrees that this
was the right thing to do, she thought. I hope I never feel like gambling on
anything again in my life. I hope they can save this little girl so she can
walk again. I hope Alanna and Joe get to wherever it is they want to go.

Then Shelly unlaced the
little blue silk bag they’d given her back at the casino and looked down at the
platinum chips within. She slid the envelope into the box and then slowly,
methodically, dropped each chip through the slot. Each one made a gentle little
clink as it dropped until finally Shelly was left with nothing but the empty
blue bag.