Chapter Thirty-Three

Vera greeted Doctor Mauwad cheerfully as the black woman came into Cheri’s suite. She had seen the psychiatrist in the house before, talking to Doctor Macklin, but had not had the chance to meet her. “Hello. I’m Vera Shin, the day nurse.”

She stepped across the room and shook Vera’s hand. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’m afraid I haven’t actually introduced myself. I’m Sanantha Mauwad.”

She had never heard an accent like the psychiatrist’s before, but she tried to hide any surprise. “It is very nice to finally meet you. I have heard of the wonderful things you have done for this family.”

She smiled a deeply dimpled grin. “Well, I can tell you it has been quite an adventure. One that I am glad to say is finally winding down.” She nodded at the comatose woman in the bed. “How is she doing?”

“She…” she hesitated. “Mrs. Macklin, is stable again.”

Doctor Mauwad chuckled. “Yes, this is Mrs. Macklin now. I guess that took some getting used to. You said ‘stable.’ Was she not stable?”

“She had some difficulties when she was changing with the death of the virus.” Her temperature was hard to maintain and she didn’t digest her food properly. She’s doing much better this week.”

“That’s good. I have a treatment I would like to give her that should help her get over any lingering side effects of the virus.”

“Have you told either Doctor Kwon or Doctor Macklin about this treatment?”

“I told Doctor Macklin. It is homeopathic. It’s a mud wrap. I’m hoping to draw any remaining toxins from her with this mud I brought,” she said, holding up a white plastic tub.

Vera considered calling Doctor Kwon, but a mud wrap did seem pretty benign. It actually sounded very kind. “What kind of sheets will you need? I’ve got a rubber sheet under the bed pad. I can put another rubber sheet on top.”

“I’m not going to cover her whole body, just her abdomen. Yes, a rubber sheet to catch any spills would be good.”

With both of them rolling Cheri’s body and pulling the sheet into place, they made quick work of the preparations. Vera undressed her and laid a blanket across her legs.

The mud Doctor Mauwad spread on her body was smooth and black. She spread it with her fingertips from below her breasts all the way down to her pubis. She then pulled the blanket up to cover her. “Now we let it dry. Should take a half an hour.”

“It will draw toxins out?” Vera asked.

“Yes. It’s an old home remedy.”

Vera grinned shyly. “Sometimes those work the best.”

“I have some calls to make. So, I’ll be back when it’s ready.”

Once the psychiatrist was gone, Vera opened the jar and sniffed. In addition to the obvious earthen smells, it also had hints of camphor and peppermint. As long as it worked. This poor woman had been through enough, and certainly deserved some pampering.

* * * *

After checking her voice mail, Sanantha logged onto her PDA and found an email from what looked like a government office. She half expected it to be a phishing message from Nigeria. Instead it was from the Malaysian Office of Customs and Immigration.

Mister/Ms. Mauwad,

Please be advised that our status review of your Alien Work Permit has been terminated. All hearings and other actions related to this status review have been cancelled. Your Alien Work Permit status is restored to Active. The government of Malaysia thanks you for your cooperation.

Sanantha blinked at the screen a few times, and saved the message so she could print it out for safekeeping. Young Nae’s machinations unwinding? Random bureaucratic bumbling? She resigned herself that she would probably never know. It was one less thing to worry about.

She headed back upstairs.

When she entered the bedroom suite, Vera wasn’t there. She checked her watch, and it had been twenty-five minutes. She peeled the blanket back and saw exactly what she had expected. As the mud had dried, it had cracked and discolored, and formed a distinctive pattern all down the length of her body of a cobra. “Old home remedies do indeed work,” she commented to herself.

She looked around and was glad the nurse wasn’t there to see this. She found a tongue depressor and began scraping the mud off, starting with the telltale pattern.

Vera walked back in. “Did it work?”

“I think so. As you can see, it dried and clumped up, just like it’s supposed to. Sadly, we can’t ask her how it feels.”

“I had a mud bath once. It felt wonderful.”

“Good for you.”

As they washed Cheri off, Sanantha mentally ran down the list of extraordinary things she had faced, starting with Randolph dropping dead during hypnosis and ending with finally seeing the cause of Cheri’s coma. She promised herself some day she would go back to Haiti and share the whole story with Father Gorvil.

* * * *

The tropical warm water rushing past his body was soothing and invigorating at the same time. Randy found himself kicking his flippers harder just to feel the joy it brought. The crystal clear waters and the stunning array of colors on the coral below him heightened the bliss of the moment.

The muffled sounds and the rhythmic hollow breathing in his ears seemed to close him off from the world. It gave him space and time to think. He decided to think about nothing.

A swirl of blue caught his eye out of the side of his face mask. A school of parrot fish turned as a single unfurling carpet of color around the end of a rock outcropping. He started to follow, but saw that on the other side of those rocks the bottom fell away dramatically. No need to become a target for something big and hungry down there.

He rolled over onto his back and watched his bubbles float up into the sun glinting across the surface. He spotted the outline of his rowboat, and it reminded him to keep track of his time. He checked his watch. Indeed, it had been half an hour and his tank was going to run out soon. He kicked lazily up towards the vessel.

Cheri was waiting for him in the boat. He was surprised to see her there, and glad too. She looked enticing with her short black hair wetly framing her face and clinging to her neck above her shoulders shining over her strapless one-piece suit. “Hi. I thought you were staying ashore.”

“I got bored of the beach. I wanted to swim. Actually, I really need to talk to you. Let me help you with that tank.” She reached over him and lifted the steel canister up off his shoulders, and set it down in the boat.

He pulled himself up and in. He knew he wanted to talk to her, but he hadn’t thought that she would want to talk to him.

She blinked a lot and couldn’t make eye contact while she gathered her thoughts. “I have a confession to make. I know you know that I had an affair with Young Nae. I need to tell you myself. Yes, I cheated on you. All I can say in my defense is that I never meant to hurt you. It was halfway around the world, and I thought there was no way you could ever find out. I knew finding out would hurt you. The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt you.”

“How can having an affair not be a reflection on me? On how you feel about me? How can I not be hurt by that?”

“It was never about you. I never stopped loving you. You have always been the best thing in my life. Young Nae was exciting. Letting him fall in love with me was so easy and so outside of my normal experience, I thought I could try it out. I never wanted it to be anything more than a dalliance.”

“It lasted for a couple of years. It’s not like it was a one-night stand.”

“I know. He just became part of my other life on the road.”

“Your life on the road was an escape from our home life?”

“I never felt my road life was better than our home life. I have thought about this a lot, but I really have no excuse. The best I can come up with is I’m sorry.”

“I am glad to hear you say that.”

“I can’t even bring myself to ask for your forgiveness. I do want you to know how sorry I am.”

“You know, we found out how dangerous Young Nae was.”

“Yes, I saw that. Thank God Desiree survived the ordeal. Who could have known?”

“He led me away from ethics, got me used to cutting corners, got me used to not asking the tough questions about wrong and right. He had his own selfish agendas. He nearly killed Desiree to get a copy of you. So I’m pretty sure you are not completely to blame for the affair. You said it was easy to let him fall in love with you. I’m pretty sure Young Nae never did anything in his life that wasn’t planned and purposeful.”

“That’s… that’s really very understanding of you.”

“Well, he suckered me too. So how can I lay all the blame on you? It still hurts. I don’t know at what point I will be able actually to forgive you. I do not see forgiveness as an impossible goal.”

“I feel like I didn’t tell you enough how much I love you.”

“Even when I found out, I didn’t stop loving you.”

She slid off her bench, knelt down in the small boat, and hugged him around the waist. He wrapped his arms around her.

“I still love you, even though you’re gone.”

“I am here now.”

“I know I’m dreaming. I needed to hear you say you’re sorry, so my mind is playing out the scenario.”

“No, Randy, it’s me. I needed to tell you I’m sorry.”

“My only wish is this could have been a happy dream, with us making love, and all this pain was behind us, forgiven and forgotten in a dream reality.”

She squeezed him tighter. “There will be plenty of time for dreams like that once I’m gone.” She looked up at him with those dark brown eyes, so deep he could lose himself there in an instant. Tears ran down her cheeks. He felt his own well up. She reached up and kissed him more tenderly, more sincerely than he could ever remember. He swore he would remember this kiss after he awoke.

She pressed her head against his chest. “I wish we had done this kind of thing more often when we had the chance.”

“Make out in a dinghy?”

She grinned up at him. “Take the time to be honest and open.”

“I’m sure most couples should heed that advice. Life gets in the way. Things always work more smoothly in dreams. Dreams are unencumbered with the details of reality. I mean, when did you become a strong enough swimmer to cover the half a mile from shore?”

“That’s all right. You’ve never learned to scuba dive either!” she said playfully, and pushed him hard in the chest. As he fell back overboard, the last thing he heard her say was, “Goodbye, my love!”

Instead of hitting the water, his back landed on the floor next to his bed. Waking up didn’t surprise him. Suddenly being dry felt weird. He sat there for a long moment, reveling in how she had felt in his arms and how true she had sounded. He was glad the dream had been so vivid. He was happy to remember the kiss.

He thought about how persuasive Young Nae could be, and how much slack he should give Cheri for having fallen into his thrall. He had never been able to stay mad at her for very long. He loved her too much.

He started to get up and had to untangle himself from the sheet his fall had dragged off the bed. He heard a faint strain of music from the living room and went to investigate. It was coming from his laptop on the desk on the far side of the room. It was his usual WBIG feed. He must have been so tired he forgot to turn it off last night. He turned up the volume of Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear the Reaper.

“Came the last night of sadness; And it was clear she couldn’t go on.

“Then the door was open and the wind appeared; The candles blew and then disappeared.

“The curtains flew and then he appeared; Saying, ‘Don’t be afraid.’

“Come on baby; And she had no fear.

“And she ran to him; Then they started to fly.

“They looked backward and said goodbye.

“She had become like they are; She had taken his hand; She had become like they are.

“Come on baby; Don’t fear the reaper.”

He closed the laptop.

His mobile phone on the kitchen counter rang. “Hello?”

“Doctor Macklin, this is Vera, upstairs. Can you come up right away?” He looked at his pajama shorts and T-shirt. “Sure. What’s going on?”

“We need you right away. It’s your wife. We’re losing her.”

He hung up and ran.

As he came in the door of the bedroom suite, the heart monitor started its long high wail. “Everything just shut down. I can’t even tell what’s wrong. She was fine just a few minutes ago.” Vera started to climb up onto the bed to get a better reach for CPR.

He walked over and put his hand on her arm. “There’s no need to do that.”

“But Doctor, I have your written instructions to use extreme measures if necessary to keep her alive.”

He grabbed up the clipboard that she had left on the foot of the bed. “This was from when we thought this was my daughter. I rescind these instructions. Cheri has been through enough. This is the brain damage from the original asphyxiation catching up to her. She won’t be coming back.”

Vera climbed off the bed.

He stepped up and caressed Cheri’s face with his hand. His concerned frown slowly melted away into a caring smile. “Goodbye, my love.”