Twilight Hunger
Chapter 20

Morgan lay on the table in a paper gown, with goose bumps rising on her arms and legs. Why the hell did doctors' offices have to be so cold? A tube ran into her arm from an IV bag on a pole. Clear fluid filled the bag. The doc had injected some kind of supercharged vitamin shot into the tube, as well. Not that any of that would help. She knew what she needed, and it was not in that IV.
Dr. Hilman came back inside, looking serious. David was sitting in a chair nearby. He'd stepped out during the exam but returned immediately after, and Morgan didn't have the heart to toss him out. She loved David, and she knew he loved her. She had a niggling feeling he was up to something though. She knew she shouldn't. She had never had any reason to mistrust David. He was the only person in her rife she did trust, in fact. Besides Dante. Yet she had seen David today, alone with the blond woman. Lydia, that was her name. They'd been alone together, talking, and the atmosphere between them, around them, had seemed charged with some sort of intense energy. Morgan didn't know why. She had heard the car leave after Maxine's emotional goodbye. She'd expected to come down and find David alone.
Instead she'd found him deep in conversation with Lydia, and they had both gone silent when they had seen her.
It still bothered Morgan. What could he have been talking about with the stranger?
David got to his feet at the doctor's reappearance. "Well?"
Dr. Hilman was over fifty but looked thirty-nine. Nice hair of nondescript brown, with a few gray strands but no sign of balding. He was in excellent shape. Must make most of his patients feel decidedly unworthy.
He drew a breath, sighed, smiled with his nice even teeth. "Frankly, Morgan, I'd like to get you admitted."
It took a second for her brain to translate. Then she blinked. "To the hospital?"
"Just so we can keep an eye on you. Your blood count is low, you're anemic, and you just don't look good."
"Can't you give me a blood transfusion and send me home?"
He exchanged glances with David. "If we could find a donor. You know you have a rare blood type."
"Yeah. I know." She lifted her head. "I have a sister, you know. A twin. But she doesn't have the Belladonna Antigen. How is that possible?"
He frowned at her. "Identical or fraternal?"
"I don't know. We look alike."
"Lots of fraternal twins look alike. You're sure she doesn't have the antigen?"
"She's healthy. Robust even."
He lowered his head, shook it slowly. "We don't understand Belladonna, Morgan. It doesn't behave the way other antigens do."
She nodded, having figured as much. "Look, Doctor, you're not going to be able to do anything for me in a hospital bed except make me sicker than I already am. I want to go home. I want to be in my house. I need to be mere."
Narrowing his eyes, he leaned over her, removed the IV tube from her arm and applied a bandage as he asked, "Why?"
"I love it there. If I'm going to die, that's where I want to be, and if I'm not, then I want to spend the time I have left there."
"Really, Morgan," David said. "If it's only one night-"
"It's my life. I want to go home." She got to her feet. "You can't force me to stay in a hospital. I'm an adult. I'm going." Reaching for the counter where her clothes were folded, she took them. "You two can get out of here or watch me get dressed."
"All right, all right" The doctor turned for the door even as Morgan was pulling on her jeans. He stepped out, David close behind him.
She managed to wait until the door fell closed before she gripped the counter and held on. Dizziness, weakness. Damn, she'd gotten up too fast.
It passed slowly, fading until she could focus on the dull thrum of male voices outside the door. Buttoning her jeans, she leaned closer to listen.
"... something to help her sleep?" David was asking.
"I'll give you something to take home."
"I'll give it to her before bed."
The hell he would. She couldn't sleep. Not at night. Night was what she had been waiting and waiting for. She had to see Dante. She had to. She had to show him, to prove to him, that none of this was her, that she hadn't betrayed him. She edged closer to the door, leaned against it to listen.
"Tell me the truth, Doctor. How much time do you think she has?"
"You know I can't be sure of something like that."
"But you have an idea. I can see in your eyes that you have some idea. So what is it, Doctor? Come on. Months?" There was a pause. "Weeks?"
Still the doctor said nothing.
"My God, days?" David asked softly.
"Maybe. I'm sorry, David. I know how much you love her."
"There has to be something we can do."
"We could find a suitable blood donor," the doctor said. "That would give her a little more time."
"Then that's what we have to do."
"You realize... we'd only be buying time. In the end... "
"I realize it. I just don't accept it. I can't."
The pain in David's voice stabbed at Morgan's heart.
The doctor sighed. "I'll do everything I can to extend the time she has, David. I promise you."
Max tried to speak in the voice she always used as she continued narrating her most recent adventures into the telephone handset. "It was the damnedest thing, Stormy. Like she wanted me there, but at the same time, she couldn't wait to get rid of me. I'll tell you right now, hon, you're much more sisterlike than she is." She paused. "Anyway, Lou and I went to the hotel that Sumner recommended. Turns out he had called ahead. Guess he has clout, too, because you oughtta see this freaking place. We have a suite with two bedrooms, a sitting room and a little kitchenette. And the view-man, you've never seen a view like this, Storm. Great big windows looking out over the ocean. Waves and foam and rocky shore. Boats and gulls. Wait, you can hear them." She cranked open the window of the suite and held the phone out toward the screeching seagulls. Sea air rushed in, that fresh saltwater and fish tang, and an autumn nip.
"Did you hear them?" she asked, knowing there would be no answer. "You and I have to come back here when you're better. Stay in the same spot, you know? Of course, it's nothing in comparison to that house of my sister's, but it's nice. Hey, and when we come back, you can meet Morgan. You won't believe how much she looks like me. Only thinner and way prettier. Richer, too, but lonely. She's not happy. I don't know if she ever has been."
And she was sick, Max added silently. Sick, maybe dying. Just like Stormy. For a moment she felt a weight settle onto her shoulders, a crushing, heavy, pressing weight. It made it hard to breathe.
"Anyway," she said, her voice thicker now, speaking, an effort, "Lydia finally showed up here an hour after we did. Guess she went out walking and lost track of the time. She said David Sumner gave her a ride. He was going out anyway, taking Morgan to, uh, some sort of appointment."
She was being very careful not to say anything negative, anything frightening. Not only for Stormy's sake, but because she knew Storm's mom was probably hearing a lot of the conversation as she held the phone near her daughter's ear. She didn't want to upset the woman. And she certainly couldn't mention any part of the real reason why she was here in Maine.
"I love you, Storm. I want you to wake up. You know? So you can talk back, give me advice, tease me about Lou. It isn't fair, me doing all the talking. You'd damn well better wake up by the time I get home. Okay? Just wake up. Wake up, Stormy... "
She had to stop there. The tears were spilling over, and her throat contracted too tightly. She tried to get hold of herself, gulped in a couple of breaths.
"Easy, Maxie. Easy." Big, callused hands on her shoulders, heavy but gentle.
She glanced behind her at Lou; she hadn't even heard him come in. So much for the damn screeching gulls. He gave her a little boxer's massage. He did that a lot. It was the most physical contact she ever managed to get out of him, and she took advantage of it, because it helped. She leaned back a little, his chest behind her, solid, warm. She could almost feel herself drawing a little of his solidness and warmth into her body to battle the weakness and the chill. How could she bear to lose her sister and her best friend all at once?
"Maxine?"
She started, surprised to hear a voice on the line. For just an instant she thought-but no, it was Stormy's mother. "Hi, Jane. How is she? Is there any change?"
There was a long pause. Then, "She's no worse."
But no better, Max inferred. "Do you think she's hearing me?"
"I know she is, Maxine."
"Really? Was there any sign while I was talking to her?"
"I don't need any signs. I'm her mother. I know. You mean the world to her, and I know she's hearing everything you say."
Max nodded, sniffed, rubbed her cheek with the back of one hand. "I won't be here much longer. A day or two at the most."
"You do what you need to. I... I heard what you told Tempest-about finding your sister. That's the hand of God, young lady, that led you up there. Don't you doubt it. And don't take it for granted."
"I'm not."
Jane sighed. "We play the tapes you made for her, your voice reading to her. And the music you sent over, we play that, too."
"It's Tuesday, you know," Max said. "Her favorite show's on tonight."
"I know. There's a TV in the room. I won't forget. Goodbye, dear. Call again when you can."
"I will." Max lowered the phone slowly to the cradle, missed it somehow. Lou took it from her and put it in place.
"How's she doing?" he asked.
"No change." She turned slowly, slid her arms around his waist, let her head rest on his chest. He hugged her, rocked her back and forth a little.
"It's only been a day."
"Every day it's less likely she'll ever come out of it." She spoke against the fabric of his shirt but trusted that he heard and understood. "I'm losing two sisters at once, Lou. I'm not sure I can take this."
"You're tough, Max. Toughest kid I know. And I'm here for you, you know that, right?"
She nodded.
"Lydia's got a nice hot bath all run for you, and a cup of that herbal tea she picked up when she was out exploring today. I want you to go soak and drink that tea, and then I want you to take a nap."
She lifted her head, felt her eyes burning and wondered just how hellish she looked right now. "When it gets dark-"
"We're going back to Morgan's place to stake it out," he said. "Even though she and David both told us not to."
Max nodded. "You think you know me pretty well, don't you?"
"Am I right?"
"Yeah."
"So that's why you need to rest a while now. You're all in." He ran a palm from the top of her head down over her hair, until it cupped her cheek. "I don't like seeing you like mis, Maxie. I don't like it at all."
She smiled tiredly. "That's 'cause you're nuts about me, just too dense to know it." She leaned up and kissed him on the mouth, softly, briefly. Then she turned away and headed into the bathroom.
Lou sighed as he walked back into the sitting area of the suite and sank into a plush chair. Lydia was sipping tea, tapping one foot, nervous.
"She needs you, you know," he said.
Lydia shot him a worried look. "I'm right here."
"She's hurting bad. She doesn't deserve that. She's a good girl."
"I know she is."
He stared hard into her eyes. "You've got to tell her."
"And what good do you suppose it would do her to learn that her mother was a whore? Hmm?"
"Come on, Lydia, that's not even close to what you are."
"It's what I was."
"You were a kid. Alone and clueless. Now you're a freaking hero."
She rolled her eyes.
"You think you're not? You got out of the slime alive. Barely. So what do you do? Get as far from it as you can, the way most people would? No. No, you lie on the goddamn ground and reach back down into the thick of it to pull kids out. One after the other, you haul their asses out of the muck, hose 'em off, tuck 'em away someplace safe. A place you made safe for them. Then you turn around and go back for more. You get dirty, you get splashed with that shit all the time. Doesn't bother you. You keep on going."
She faced him, and he saw that her eyes were damp. "That's the way Kimbra used to talk about our work. Like it was something noble. Some kind of divine calling."
"It is."
She lowered her eyes.
"You do all that for those kids. Those kids you don't know. Now you have a chance to do something for your own. Your own kids, Lydia."
"They're hardly kids, Lou." She set her teacup down on the coffee table.
He shrugged. "They need their mother. Max feels like she's losing everyone she cares about. And Morgan-God, that girl has no one, other than Sumner. You don't connect with her now, you may never get the chance."
She averted her eyes, maybe to hide a rush of wetness, he thought. "She wouldn't even embrace her twin sister. What makes you think she'd give a damn about me?"
"You won't know unless you try, Lyd."
"They've managed without me this long... "
"And they're both falling apart."
She bit her lip. He felt sorry for pushing her so hard and decided to back off. "At least I've maybe given you something to think about."
"You have."
"Okay. We'll drop it. You better get some rest. Maxie's gonna want to sit up all night watching her sister's place, and I know damn well you won't stay behind."
"No more than you would," she said.
"Of course not." He got to his feet and headed for the coffeepot in the tiny alcove at the far end of the room.
"She loves you, you know."
Lydia's words stopped him in his tracks. He thought maybe his heart might have ground to a halt, too, but no, that was wrong. It was pounding hard enough to pump hot blood into his face. He said, "She thinks she does. But that'll only last until some young buck her own age comes along and sweeps her off her feet. Till then, I pretend not to see it."
"For her own good?"
"And mine."
"Because you'll both get hurt in the end?" she asked.
He didn't answer, but he did find it in him to get moving toward the coffeepot again. Found a cup, filled it.
"You know, sometimes I think that if only I could have seen into the future, if only I could have known that loving Kimbra would lead me to this horrible, gut-wrenching grief of losing her, maybe I would have turned away from her the day we met. Maybe I wouldn't have taken that risk."
He nodded slowly, as if fully understanding.
"And then I realize," she went on, "that that would have been the biggest mistake of my life. God, when I think of the joy I would have missed. The days we had... the nights." She sniffed. "No. I'd suffer anything in exchange for the love we shared. Anything. I'd never trade it in. Not even if it meant my pain would vanish without a trace."
Lou sipped his coffee and pretended with everything in him that her pointed message was sailing right over his head. It wasn't, of course. But he could pretend.