Chapter 8: Back to Cannes

“Alex?” Carina cried. “Can you hear me?”

“Huh?” I finally replied.

“What happened to you, Sweetheart?” she asked, almost in a panic.

“Huh?” I repeated. My mind was struggling to comprehend what had happened. Only seconds ago, I had been holding a downed power wire in the rain, in Texas.

“When ... when did you get here?” I asked her groggily.

“I think the better question would be, how did YOU get HERE?” she replied.

‘Where is here?” I asked. “I mean, where am I?”

“You’re in my clinic ... in Cannes,” she told me.

I slowly looked around the room. It was almost identical to the room I had woken up in over a year ago, after I had been struck by lightning and then destroyed a hospital room with my crazy EMFs. That time, the doctor and my parents had induced a coma and then conspired to send me secretly to Cannes, to keep the government from taking me away. When I woke up, I discovered that I had been in a coma for ten days.

“What day is it?” I asked suddenly.

“What?” Carina asked.

“I asked you what today’s date is,” I replied calmly.

“Justine? Would you take Mrs. Chavis to the room across the hall. I think this is upsetting her,” Carina said to the young nurse standing beside the upset woman who was sitting up in the bed. And I was certain that my drenched and shredded clothing, still giving off smoke, was doing just that.

When they were gone, Carina looked at me carefully, searching for any damage or clues as to what happened to me.

“It’s just after five pm on Friday, April 23^rd,” she finally told me.

“Oh, shit!” I exclaimed. “It happened again, didn’t it?”

“What happened again?” she asked. “You suddenly turn up here in my clinic, and you’re all wet. Your hair is singed. Your clothes are shredded, and you have burn marks on your hands.”

As she spoke, it all came flooding back to me and my mind seemed to freeze. I couldn’t answer her because my mouth and my brain could not seem to connect.

Carina pulled her phone from her pocket and speaking rapidly in English, told her husband to get to the clinic as fast as possible and to bring some of his clothes. Then she called her mother-in-law and quickly explained how I had just suddenly appeared out of nowhere and told her to come as soon as she could.

Then she helped me to my feet, quickly undressed me and led me into the shower in the en suite bath.

“Does this bring back any memories?” she asked lovingly.

“Oh, yeah!” I thought but no words came from my mouth. Instead, I nodded my head up and down like one of those bobble heads they give away at the ball park. I grinned as she continued to bathe me. Then, quickly toweling me off, she led me naked to the now unoccupied hospital bed and tucked me in.

“Just lay there and rest. And don’t try to speak any more. I’ll be right back,” she said as she left the room with her phone to her ear as she relayed instructions to someone in French.

I couldn’t help it. I closed my eyes and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

I awoke to her sitting on the edge of the bed and listening to my chest with her stethoscope. I kept my eyes closed and just listened as she talked with another woman.

“His blood pressure and heart rate are elevated, but not dangerously so,” she relayed to the woman. “His pulse oximetry is within normal limits.”

“How did he get here?” the woman asked.

“I was checking on Mrs. Chavis when he crashed through the open door and collapsed at my feet. I had thought he was in America, but I think something traumatic must have happened to him for him to come all this way looking for me,” she replied. Thank God she didn’t tell whoever it was what had really happened.

“Justine came in when she heard the noise and I sent her with Mrs. Chavis to the room across the hall,” she continued. “Poor Estelle was so rattled by his sudden appearance, I figured it best to get her away from him as quickly as possible. Then I called Roland. Daniel was a patient of his last year until the explosion on the yacht in Martinique last March.”

“Oh, the poor dear,” she said. Then she rattled off something in French.

“He was conscious, but in shock, so I put him in the shower and bathed him and then put him to bed. Then I called Roland and went to find you.”

“But what happened to him and why did he come here?” the female asked.

“Daniel lived with us while Roland was treating him. During that time, he grew close to me. Sort of a substitute mother figure. My guess is that something traumatic happened to him and he came looking for me. I mean I practically raised the boy for almost a year,” Carina explained.

“Well ... what are you going to do with him? He certainly cannot stay here!” she said indignantly.

“That’s why I called Roland to come and get him and take him to our home. He should be here anytime,” she told the lady. “Why don’t you go back to work and I’ll sit with him until Roland arrives with some fresh clothes for the boy.”

“Well, I guess that would be okay...” she said slowly. “As long as you get him out of here as fast as possible. I’m sure word has already spread and is probably making all the patients worry.”

I waited until I heard the door open and then close. Then dimmed the lights once and opened my eyes.

“Oh, Alex!” she cried as she leaned down and kissed me. I started to return her passionate kiss but she pulled away quickly.

“We can’t have any bright lights in here. It would be too difficult to explain,” she told me and then smiled as she ran her fingers through my hair.

A few minutes later, there was a soft knock on the door and Roland entered with a clean set of scrubs. “It was all I could find on short notice,” he explained.

“Come on, let’s get him dressed and out of here. You take him home while I clean up a few things here,” she told her husband. “I’ll be about thirty minutes behind you.”

Roland led me out the back door and to his car. It was a Bentley.

“New car?” I asked after we had been on the road for five minutes.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I got it a few weeks ago.”

“I guess you’re wondering what happened?” I asked.

“I am. But let’s wait until we get to the house and Carina gets home, then we’ll talk,” he instructed. Roland didn’t like to talk about serious things when he drove because he couldn’t keep his eyes on both me and the road.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“I’m still a growing boy. I’m always hungry!” I told him.

“Good. Let’s stop and get some takeout. Carina should be there by the time we get home.”

“ALEX!” Mischa screamed when I walked through the door. Then she ran and jumped into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist, and kissing me passionately.

After we untangled, she took my arm and led me into the dining room where Carina was already setting out the takeout. Mischa began to ask me questions, rapid-fire like, without waiting for me to answer.

“When did you get here? How did you get here? Why did you come?” she fired at me.

“Mischa, you need to hold your questions until Alex has a chance to explain what happened,” her mother told her.

So as we ate, I began to relate the story of the SUV crashing into the power pole and me grabbing the live wires so Andreza could pull the occupants to safety. Then how I grounded the power line into the ground stake at the foot of the pole and the explosion that followed when I released the wire. Then I told her my thoughts just at the split second of the explosion.

I am not sure how coherent it all sounded, and when I finished, there was silence as they considered what I had said.

“Carina, dear, why don’t you tell us what happened at the clinic,” Roland asked his wife.

“I was at the clinic helping Fräulein Hamblin with some of the newer patients when all of a sudden there was a loud crack and then Alex was suddenly lying there on the floor at my feet. He was soaked to the bone as the Americans say, and his pants where in tatters and his hair was singed on one side. His eyes were wild looking and he had burn marks on his hands,” she told us. “He asked me when I got there, and I explained that it was more like how he got here. Then he asked me where he was and what day it was. When I told him, his eyes glazed over and he couldn’t speak. I think he was in shock.”