Life Blood --X---Page 34

Now she appeared to be dozing off, exhausted, her head

tipping downward toward her blue hospital shift. Mrs. Reilly took that as a hint, and slowly began wheeling her toward the
bedroom, leaving me alone with Lou.

I glanced over at him, thinking more and more that I had to do
something, track down what had happened to her. I wanted to do
it for me, but even more for him. I'd never seen him so
despondent. Maybe it was the thing scholars call the curse of
rising expectations. Back when she was hardly more than a
vegetable, he was overjoyed by a flickering eyelid. Now that she
was talking, he wanted all of her back. Instead, though, it seemed
as if she had returned to us for a moment, only to be snatched
away again. I could tell it was killing him.

"Look, I'm sorry that when I showed up, she started going off
the deep end." I wanted desperately to help, but at that moment I
felt powerless. "Maybe I should just stay away for a while."

"Nah, she loves having you here. Don't worry. But anyway,
Dave said something about you taking a couple of days off.
Maybe I can use that time to be here with her and settle her
down." Then he grimly took out her locket and rubbed its worn
silver in his fingers, his eyes brimming with his heartache. "This is all just so damned confusing."

Was he telling me, indirectly, that I should go away and leave
them alone? First Hannah Klein rejects me, and now et tu, Lou?
Maybe, I thought, he's taking out his despair on me, blaming me
for her relapse. Truthfully, I guess I was blaming myself a bit too.

"Listen, I'm going to go home now and leave you two alone," I said. "But why don't you see if you can get her to talk some more? Without me around, maybe she'll make more sense."

"If she wants to say something, I'll listen." He gave me a

strong, absent embrace, his eyes still despondent. "But no way am I gonna start pushing her."

I edged into the bedroom, unsure if I really should, to say
good-bye to Sarah and to give her one last hug. Her eyes were open again and she just stared at me for a second, then
whispered a word I couldn't quite make out. It might have
sounded like "Babylon," but that made no sense at all. Finally she covered her eyes with her hands and turned away, gone from me, leaving me more alone than I'd ever felt.