A Fishy End

Chapter 55

Cherie is obviously struggling with a deep depression, Jack thought as he stood on her porch.

She gave him a watery look. "Can I help you?" Behind her the house was a disaster, trash everywhere and dirt piling up.

"I need to speak to you."

"Okay," she said, but she didn't open the door.

"Can I come in?"

She gave him a worried and embarrassed look. "I'm not sure . . ."

"Never mind the mess," he told her firmly. "And really, you need to be sitting for this." When she didn't move, he added. "It's really important. It's about David."

That finally got him inside. He cleared a small stack of dirty clothes from the couch and sat gingerly on the cleared space. He watched a cockroach make its way across the floor and fought the urge to bolt, or stomp on it. It would do no good; he could see more of them skittering about.

"What about David?" she prompted, flopping into David's old easy chair.

"Well, here is the thing, remember that day you thought you saw him?"

She nodded.

Jack cussed at himself, realising this wasn't the sort of news he should just blurt out. "Well, the thing is . . . You know they took him to the hospital that night, when he drowned and all that. They tried to revive him, tried and tried. Michael was there."

"Michael?"

"The ER nurse," Jack explained. "The one who lives down the block."

Recognition lit her eyes. "Yeah, he didn't like David much. But he's a good nurse."

Jack nodded. "Dr. West was there too."

"She talked to me," Cherie confirmed. "After. She . . . she seemed pretty broken up about it."

"She's a good person that way," Jack said. "And the thing is, she's smart too. Very smart. She knows a few things . . . umm, unconventional kind of things. Things that might—"

"Might what?"

"Have helped him."

"If she got there in time," Cherie muttered.

"If they were approved by the medical community," Jack replied. "But they are not. She still needs to do some more experiments before she can go public or anything. And yet . . ."

Cherie stared at him, hope and fear warring in her eyes. "And yet?"

"She felt she had to try."

"That's where the body went!" Cherie bolted to her feet. "That bitch! She took his body!"

"Now, now, before you jump to conclusions, there is something else you should know."

"What? What could possibly make up for thieving my husband's body to experiment on? Depriving him of a Christian burial? What?"

"She, umm, sort of succeeded."

"Succeeded?"

"Umm, well, there was some brain damage."

It was then that the other three arrived. They had planned it that way—let Jack introduce the idea and have Dr. West and Michael arrive with David. He was wrapped in a heavy quilt; they had no winter cloak for him. He looked passive and weak between the other two men, his shoulder's hunched and tired.

Until he saw Cherie.

He let out an excited squeal and pointed.

"David!" she screamed and rushed at him. They hugged, him hooting and moaning, her crying and calling his name.

A tender emotion tore at Jack. He had always thought of the two of them in terms of David's abuse of her; this obvious tenderness took him by surprise.

She stepped back and took her husband's face in her hands. "David? Is it really you?"

He hooted.

"He can't talk," Doctor West said. "He was unresponsive, his brain without oxygen for so long. Really it's a miracle I was able to bring him back at all, given."

"It is! It really is a miracle," Cherie said. "A miracle."