Fleur
IT TOOK THREE days for the doctors to determine that Assefa had likely not incurred any serious brain damage. Mother phoned me with the news.
“Abeba just called. Isn’t it wonderful? A miracle, really.”
“How did she sound?”
“Exhausted. Teary. Relieved. And disturbingly apologetic.”
“Apologetic! For what?”
“For putting us through so much distress.”
“Mother!”
“I know.”
“Do you think I can call her?”
“I think that would be a lovely idea.”
Without allowing myself to think, I did.
Abeba answered the phone on the first ring, and I realized she must be on perpetual tenterhooks. “Yes?” Her voice cracked a little. I let my body down into a kitchen chair.
“Abeba, it’s Fleur.”
She started to cry. Which, needless to say, set me off, too.
“I’m so sorry,” she finally said.
“Abeba, please,” I remonstrated. Then, of all people, Jacob came to me. “We’re all in this with you. Me, Mother, Stanley, Gwennie, all of Assefa’s friends. Everyone loves him and has been praying for him.”
“Does he still have friends, Fleur?” Her voice had a slight edge, and for a second I thought, He’s told them. But then she went on, “I am so afraid he has lost everything by doing this. How could he, Fleur? How could he? I knew he was ... unsettled. But this?” She broke into sobbing again. I hated myself for having phoned her. “I am so glad you called,” she said.
“Abeba, I didn’t want to add to your burden. I just wanted to tell you how grateful I am that he’s okay. Well, maybe okay is the wrong word. I know he’s got to be in a lot of pain. But at least he’s here, Abeba. At least he’s here.”
This was stupid. We were both sobbing now, speechless.
I heard the clatter of her phone being put down; in an obvious attempt to gather herself, Abeba was blowing her nose. She came on the line again. “He is sitting up and eating and even talking a little.” She gave a faint laugh. “Enough to tell us to go home. He is such a good boy, Fleur. Always thinking about others. You will visit him today? I know he will want to see you.”
“Of course,” I said, panicking.
Which is how I ended up entering the labyrinthine complex where Assefa had morphed from healer to patient. The place was a zoo. Well, not really, but from the point of exiting the packed elevator at his floor it took me ten minutes to find Room 515.
The door to the room was open, but a nurse was blocking the threshold, her back to me as she peered inside. Tall and thin, she’d captured her fiery red hair in a tight rubber band. I tapped her shoulder. She wheeled around and flashed me a wide grin. “He’s asleep,” she said, stepping away from the door, presumably so as not to wake him. I followed suit. “No, no,” she said, “I was just looking in on him. I try to come by at least once a day. But, please. Go on in.”
“Are you a friend? Do you work with him?” I asked—anything to delay the moment of actually seeing Assefa.
She threw me a shrewd look. “Are you his fiancée Fleur?” I instinctually nodded, then decided not to correct myself as she went on, “His mother speaks so highly of you. What a sweet family,” she said, a doubtful look in her eyes. I could tell she would have liked to ask a million questions, but I certainly wasn’t going to encourage her. I had a few, myself.
Then she threw me for a loop, no awful pun intended. “Actually, I work in oncology. I’m Evelyn McDermott.” She held out a surprisingly strong hand. I shook it. “I was the one who found him. I can’t tell you what it’s meant to me that he’s survived.”
I stared at her. “You saved him.” I reached out to shake her hand again, this time with feeling.
We walked down the hall, distancing ourselves further from Assefa’s room. “Well, I suppose I did, but somehow I felt the whole time that something was moving through me, if you know what I mean.”
She clearly wanted to tell me. I nodded for her to go on. “I’d actually had a dream the night before. It was an awful dream, a real nightmare. Someone had to make a life or death decision. It was a man with his son—the kid was in terrible pain, and the father was about to spare him any more suffering by killing him. With an axe. I woke myself up screaming at one a.m., and I thought to myself, ‘Well, something’s not right.’ I actually texted my son in the middle of the night and scared him to death. The thing is, my son has no father.” Her speech had become increasingly rushed. Now she paused for breath. This woman had been traumatized, too, by what Assefa had done.
“I don’t know, when I saw this man—your fiancé—slumped over with that ... thing ... around his neck, his face grotesque—such a terrible shade of purple and a horrifying gurgle coming from his throat, I knew I had to get it off him. Thank God he had the knife he’d cut the rope with right there. It had fallen onto the floor. Still, it was almost impossible to cut through. It was a pulley rope, and they’re meant to bear hundreds of pounds of weight.” The expression in her eyes seemed both stunned and triumphant, like a runner who’d come from way behind to win the marathon.
When I told the story later to Sammie, she’d commented, “Good lord. How horrid. And how lucky. Just like stinging nettles, with the mugwort plant that heals their sting growing right next to them.”
My own body itched with invisible hives as I said yet another thank you to Evelyn McDermott and hesitantly entered Assefa’s hospital room. He was awake and struggled to sit up as I came in.
“Don’t,” I said. “Please. I’m just ....”
But he managed to pull himself into a quasi-seated position, his face ashy and gaunt above his white cervical collar, the arms that poked out of his flimsy, cornflower blue gown angular and listless. “Hello, Fleur.” His voice was unrecognizably hoarse.
Determined not to break down, I pulled a chair next to his bed. But not too close.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You can cry.”
But I daren’t. I barely managed a halting, “Assefa.”
“I’m here,” he whispered, giving what sounded like an attempted laugh. “Like it or not.”
“Oh, Assefa.” This was no time for real conversation. He was far too weak and there were too many elephants crowded into the room. “I’m glad you are,” I said.
“Are you?”
“I am,” I said, more emphatically.
“Well, that’s good,” he said, closing his eyes. At some point it dawned on me that he’d fallen asleep. I gave him a long look before leaving. His eyelashes were thick with gunk, the outer creases of his lips chalky with dried spittle. Staring at him without any semblance of desire, it occurred to me that I’d never loved him properly. I’d wanted him, yes. Madly. Who wouldn’t? I’d never seen a man more beautiful. And certainly, I’d admired him. But I had never felt the kind of sadness for him that I felt now. The kind of tenderness that his mother undoubtedly experienced every minute she sat here at his bedside.
I felt small and more than a little ugly as I tiptoed out of the room.
