I walked back to the bed and slowly lowered myself down on my back. I pulled up the single sheet and thin blanket with my left hand. I tried to relax, to settle and ease my muscles. I wasn't about to go to sleep again. I closed my eyes and tried to think logically and clearly about the dream. Yes, I'd felt water, but not really drowning, just a shock of water pouring into me. Just a taste of water. Then nothing at all.
I raised my left hand and rubbed my fist over my chest. At least my heart had calmed down. I pulled in more deep breaths and told myself to stop the drama crap and think. Think cold, that was the rule at the Academy. I had to stop the panic and think cold.
It took me another couple of minutes to wonder whether it hadn't been a dream at all, but something else. As clearly as I saw the face of the digital clock on the utility stand beside my bed, I remembered seeing Jilly's face.
I didn't like that at all. That was nuts, plain nuts. A strange dream where I was drowning, only not really, and for some reason Jilly was back there somewhere in my brain. I'd last seen Jilly at Kevin's home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, at the end of February. She'd acted a little strange, no other way to put it, but I hadn't really paid all that much attention, just tucked it away. Too much other stuff going on in my life, like going to Tunisia.
I remembered talking to Kevin about Jilly the day after she had flown in from Oregon. Kevin, my older brother, had just shaken his head. Living on the West Coast was making Jilly a little eccentric, and don't worry about it. Nothing more than that. Kevin was career army, had four boys, and not a whole lot of time to be thinking about the oddities of his three siblings. It had been just the four of us for eight years now, since our parents died in a car accident, hit by a drunk driver.
I remembered Jilly droning on about all sorts of things-her new Porsche, her dress that she'd bought at Langdon's in Portland, some girl called Cal Tarcher she didn't seem to like, and the girl's brother, Cotter, who
Jilly had thought was a vicious bully. She'd even gone on and on about how good sex was with Paul, her husband of eight years. There didn't seem to be any particular point to any of it as far as I could see. Now what she'd said seemed more than just simply eccentric.
Was Jilly drowning in my dream?
I didn't want to let that thought dig itself into my brain, but it had weaseled in with that dream, and it wouldn't leave now. I was tired, but not quite as tired as just the day before or the day before that. I was mending. The doctors would nod their heads and smile at each other, then at me, patting my unbruised right shoulder. They had talked about letting me go home next week. I decided I would make it sooner.
I knew I wasn't going back to sleep, not with that dream waiting for me, and I knew it was waiting, certain of it. I knew it was waiting because it didn't really feel like a dream, it was something else. I had to deal with this.
I decided then and there that I'd give my right nut for a beer. I didn't think it through, just pushed the call buzzer. In four minutes, according to my digital clock with its big red numbers, Midge Hardaway, my night nurse, stuck her head in the door.
"Mac? You okay? It's really late. You should be asleep. What's the problem?"
Midge was somewhere in her thirties, tall, with short honey-colored hair and a sharp chin. She was smart, reliable; you could count on her in a crunch. Whenever I'd drifted back to consciousness at the beginning of my stay here, she'd be right beside me, talking quietly to me, her fingers lightly stroking my arm.
I smiled at her with what I hoped was my best boyish smile, filled with irresistible charm. I wasn't sure she could even see it because the room was very dim, the only light coming from the corridor at her back. But I hoped she could at least hear all the effort I was putting into my voice. "Midge, save me. I'm in bad shape here. I just can't stand it any longer. Please, you've gotta help me. You're my only hope."
The corridor light framed a smile that was at once sympathetic and filled with laughter that she didn't bother to hide quite enough. Then she cleared her throat. "Mac, listen to me now. You've been out of commission for over two weeks. I guess since you're feeling better, this could become more and more of a problem. But hey, hon, I'm married. What would Doug think? He's got this temper, you know?"
Forget boyish charm. I tried for pathetic. "Why would Doug care? He isn't here. He wouldn't even have to know if you think it would upset him, which I can't begin to imagine that it would."
"Now, Mac, if I weren't married, I'd be truly tempted, even though you're not even close to batting a thousand yet in the health department. Hey, I'm flattered. You're good-looking, at least you were in that photo they used of you in the newspaper, and you've got the use of both hands now. But the way things stand, Mac, I just can't do it."