“You stayed with me?”
“Yeah. Paul looked ready to drop so I sent him on home. You want me to call the nurse?”
“Oh, no, I just want to lie here and be alive and start to believe it. The headache’s gone. I just feel sort of weak, nothing more.”
I gave her more water and rubbed my knuckles over her smooth cheek. “I was with you, Jilly. I was with you when you went over the cliff, when you hit the water. I felt that huge impact.”
She said nothing, just looked up at me, waiting.
“I was in the hospital myself, remember?”
She nodded. “The car bomb explosion, in Tunisia.”
“Yes. That dream or vision-whatever-was more than real. I came awake and I couldn’t breathe. It scared me shitless, Jilly. What I can’t figure out is why you hooked up with me. How you were able to connect to my mind. Were you thinking about me at all at the time?”
She shook her head. “You told me about this already, Ford. I heard you clearly, that first time you came to see me. Do you believe me?”
“Of course I believe you. I’d be pretty stupid if I didn’t, since I was with you in the Porsche, going over that bloody cliff.”
“It’s all very confusing, Ford.”
“Jilly, the truth now. Were you thinking about Laura?”
I thought she’d pass out. She turned utterly white, her breath wheezed out, and she was shaking her head back and forth on the pillow. “You brought her here. She was with you. I saw her as clearly as I always saw you. No one else, Ford, just you. And then Laura was with you, and I saw her clearly too. And I started screaming-”
“And you came out of the coma screaming,” I said slowly, my eyes never leaving her face. “You saw Laura and you couldn’t bear to have her here, and then you woke up. Was she the one who brought you out of it?”
I didn’t think she was going to answer me, then she whispered, “I had to get away from her, that’s all I know. I just couldn’t believe she was still here. What were you doing with her?”
Only the truth, I thought, but what was the truth? There were so many lies swirling about that I couldn’t be certain exactly where the truth lay, but I could at least tell her what I thought of things. “When I was here yesterday, I fell asleep holding your hand.”
“I know. I saw you.”
“We’ll talk more about that later. I awoke suddenly and heard you saying that Laura had betrayed you. At dinner last night I asked Paul about Laura, said that you’d told me about her. It took a while, but he finally admitted that he’d had an affair with her, once he admitted that she actually existed. Then he said he’d broken it off. He told me she wasn’t important. He didn’t believe that you knew about it. But you see, I knew that you had at least heard her name. I wanted to see her, so I went to the public library in Salem.”
Suddenly, Jilly was nearly gasping for breath. She was wheezing. “Ford, you’ve got to believe me. Stay away from her. She’s very dangerous.”
And I was thinking: I’ve never met anyone less dangerous in my life. What was going on here?
“Did she sleep with Paul?”
Jilly shook her head, her skin so pale I thought she would faint. Then she nodded. Was it a yes or a no or just more confusion? In any case, she was tired, upset, and I backed off. I patted her hand and covered her with a light blanket. I stood and felt my body creak. “You’re exhausted. It’s very late. I’ll let you rest awhile. Let me get the nurse.”
I watched her for a moment, seeing the waves of fatigue wash over her, dragging her under into oblivion. The nurse could wait. All my questions could wait. She needed sleep. I turned to see Nurse Himmel standing in the open doorway.
“Don’t worry. I won’t wake her up again. That’s what you were coming to tell me, wasn’t it?”