The Son, The Sudarium Trilogy - Book Two by Leonard Foglia, David Richards Page A

Surprisingly, for such a large woman, she had perfected the art of making herself invisible. She could walk into a room, while the patient was asleep, clean the place up, mop down the floors, disinfect the bathroom, in short, do everything except change the bed sheets, without being noticed. Not that there was much chance today of waking Miz O, who appeared to be off in her own strange dreamworld.
    Gathering up the dirty dishes, Sally went downstairs and washed them, while she reran in her mind the conversation she’d had recently with Miz O about the depth of her sins. “Someday I’ll show you. Some day you’ll know.” The words had stayed with Sally for days. She didn’t know why. It was a variation on a theme she’s heard every since she’d begun working here. Whatever Miz O was guilty about - Sally thought, wiping her hands on a dishtowel - it couldn’t be much. But it was the way the woman had grabbed her arm, her fingernails almost cutting into Sally’s flesh, and the intense look in her eyes. Well, for the first time, Sally had actually believed her. Maybe she wasn’t just a woman whose mind was wasting away. What if there really was a story to tell?
    Sally poured herself a cup of coffee. (The one constructive thing Maria actually did before leaving was to make a fresh pot of coffee with enough for Sally.) She was tempted to turn on the television and watch a bit of one of morning talk shows. But first – duty always coming first in Sally’s priorities – she went back upstairs to check on the old woman. When she peaked in the door, it was with some surprise that she discovered Miz O, sitting up in her bed, looking straight at her. Even more surprisingly, she was smiling almost peacefully.
    “Good mornin’, darlin’,” Sally called out, hoping the day was, in fact, beginning on a positive note. “Lovely April morning out there. Should I open the window? Air out the room a bit? You’ll be able to smell the lilacs, I bet.”
    “Would you please, Sally?”
    Thank goodness, Sally thought. It was going to be a good day, free of demons. Maybe they would watch some television together here in the room. Relax for a change.
    “I had a dream last night,” said Miz O.
    “A good dream, I hope.”
    “A wonderful dream. Miraculous, in fact, But I am afraid it will fade, so I am just going to close my eyes and try to hold onto the feeling as long as I can.”
    “Yes, you do that. I’ll leave you then.”
    “Oh, no. Don’t move, please. It’s fading. It’s fading away.” Panic filled the woman’s face.
    Maybe not such a good day, after all, thought Sally. “Tell me about your dream. Maybe if you talk about it, it will help you remember.”
    “Oh, yes. Talk about it! What a good idea.” Her face relaxed. She turned her head so she could fix Sally directly in the eyes. Then, her usually strident voice soft as a hush, she began, “I dreamt I was never born. I dreamt that my whole life had never been lived. And that I didn’t end my life in this bed, staring out the window down the street to the church steeple. I dreamt that life itself was the dream. And all my pain dissolved. Because my suffering had never taken place. It had been erased. It had somehow disappeared. Everything that had happened had never happened. I had never sinned and I was free. Free from it all. The sins, you see, had … died ! And I felt joy for the first time in so many years! And that joy came from knowing that I had never walked the earth.”
    Her voice dwindled to a mere trickle of sound.
    “Never….ever,” she said.
    And she closed her eyes, closing out Sally in the process.

2:15
     
    Knowing she was late for lunch, Teresa dodged the pedestrians on Cinco de Mayo and picked up her pace. Her mother was far from being a disciplinarian. If anything, she coddled her children. But the one thing that set her off was lateness for meals, especially Sunday, which was the big meal of the week and the one occasion the family came