Chapter 21

Jennifer was discharged from the clinic the next afternoon, and Sherrie came to take her home. She looked ... tired. My heart went out to her for the dedication and determination she showed loving Jennifer through her darkest hours. When Jennifer brought her mother to my bedside to be introduced, she seemed to stare at me for a very long time, as if some hidden part of her soul recognized me, but she couldn't figure out why.

It was disturbing, in a nice sort of way.

I watched them leave with part of my heart. It was always going to be that way. People I loved in another life were always going on without me, and I was always going to be watching and hurting. If I let it get to me, I was going to become depressed again, and I didn't want that, so I asked Constance to tell me about her great love affairs. We spent a whole day going over her former lovers, losers, and the ones she never got to love.

"When it's all said and done, Kevin Townsend was my one great love, though," Constance said, tearfully. "When he was murdered by the Muslim terrorists, a part of me died with him.' As she shed another tear for the former me, I felt the weight of my past hanging over me like a millstone, threatening to drag me to the depths of the sea.

"Constance, if you let it, the past can destroy you. It's entirely up to you whether you sink, swim, or fly. If you really loved Kevin, then you know he is safe and no longer hurting. Because you told me how sick he was, and that the shooting caused injuries that left him with a terminal diagnosis, he was going to die. The only thing left to question was when, and if he died trying, then he died well.

"Think of it through his eyes. Would Kevin Townsend want to die in a hospital bed, little by little, or would he choose to die doing something that made him happy? That's the only question that matters anymore, and you are the only one who can answer it."

Constance looked at me through tear stained eyes and said, "When did you become so grown up? I should be saying things like that to you, not being comforted listening to you say them to me."

"Kevin was another one that through his ingenuity and courage, helped keep the President safe. Even after he took a bullet trying to save John Gray, he was always involved in things that were dangerous for President Dryden. I will bet that I heard my bosses talking about things he did to help your father more than ten times. Some of it sounded really dangerous, and he was shot multiple times after recovering from the first one."

It seemed Constance wanted to talk about Kevin all the time.

"He taught me to really enjoy sex. Not just have sex, but to let myself totally get into the moment and get the most out of it. You might not understand what I'm talking about, but he was so unselfish about it that I could relax and concentrate on me, instead of him ... He really was something..." So much for not getting a big head about myself. I let her talk because the days stretched out like the Sahara Desert, and getting through them was my biggest challenge.

Then Doctor Abrams gave me the bad news.

"So ... Little One ... We find you got plenty blood but it don't really like you so much, yes?" He was already waxing poetically. "We find this thing in you that makes not so good much sense. Your heart really strong. Pumps plenty of blood to all the right spots, but your body not taking the antibodies out of the blood to fix this infection thing you get.

"Our technicians make a how you say, crooked tail, cocked up tail, you know, one of those things. It goes straight for your infection places, but the body don't make too much using out of it. We thinking the coat-tail thing not reaching the infection, or the infection just too much stubbornness, to die like a good sickness.

"What we know for sure, absolutely, is that your body hold on to infection like a precious jewelry piece. Instead of kicking itself out, your body makes a nice comfortable home for infection, and it stays because you make such a good home spot."

He smiled then.

"We have to go get your infection like old-fashioned doctors and kill it till it's dead. We kill that thing till it's so dead, it can't even bleed, because it got too much deadness going on for such things. Your body fight us every good thing we do for it, and this surgery is really a rain Mary pass, like your football players like when the shooting gun about to go off. We give it our best try, before this infection make you dead." He explained the next procedure, and how long it would take, how long before I would heal from the surgery, and what the chances were for a good outcome. I tried to remember it all to relay it to Polly and Hawk, but I needn't have bothered, he had already spoken to them at length, and Polly showed up the morning before my surgery, exhausted from flying all night to be with me when they opened me up.

Late the night before my surgery, I couldn't sleep and found myself wandering the short hallway in the clinic, trying to tire myself out. During the walk I asked myself all hard questions that I'd been avoiding. Polly slept soundly in the bed beside mine, and my detail followed me every step of the way up and down the short halls. They gave me needed space, but no one could give me peace.

What was my purpose in this life?

Why was I in Angela's body?

Had I inadvertently already done the thing the universe had for me in this body?

Would I wake up once I was put under for surgery?

What preparations should I make for the inevitable?

The questions were no problem, but the answers made my head ache. I spent a very uncomfortable night worrying about the future, and how to protect my adopted parents using the trust. Tom had put together a succession plan that gave them all the money they'd ever be able to spend. The real problem was granting it to them in a way that they'd approve of and embrace.

Morning came and I called Tom before six A.M. local time.

"Hey," he said, happily. "How's my famous client?" He sounded genuinely happy to talk to me.

I knew I didn't have a lot of time before they would be in to put me into a sleep from which I might never wake up, so I dove right in. "I am about to go into surgery, and I need you to make absolutely certain you give my new parents the following message should I not wake up, this time..." and I dictated my thoughts to the two people who gave me all their love and got nothing back but trouble.