The Other Side of Silence (9 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sunny stood for a moment with her
eyes closed in the warm July sun.

“Are you sure you’re alright doing
this by yourself, sis?”

“Yeah,” Sunny said.  She looked down
at the items in her arms, some of the things Roger had left in her house, and
the book she had wanted to show him from the Lehigh County Preservation
Society.  She hadn’t had the heart to look at it again.  There were a couple of
magazines on top, too.  These were for her.  He would understand.

“Can you get those flowers for me,
Jess?”

“Sure,” her sister answered, her
normal exuberance subdued.  Going back up on the porch, Jess lifted the
container of carnations off the table.  Sunny liked the smell of carnations,
slightly spicy and sweet.  Roger liked them, too.  He had said that once.  She
hadn’t forgotten.

Loading everything into the back seat
of the car, Sunny stepped away and hugged her sister, smoothing her dark
golden-brown hair back from her face. 

“I love you, Jess.”

“I love you, too, Sunny.”

Studying her sister’s expression, she
remembered too, the day she had told Jess she’d thought she’d never hear anyone
else say those words to her again. 

Yeah.  Well.

“Got enough gas?”

“Filled the tank yesterday,” said
Sunny with a rueful twist of her lips.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Or the day after.  I don’t know
yet.  I’ll call you.”

“Do you want me to check on Kathy for
you?” Jess asked her as Sunny climbed behind the wheel.

“Would you?” Sunny answered.  “Thanks.”

Odd, that.  Taking her ex-husband’s
pregnant wife under her wing, making certain she was cared for, made her
regular visits to the doctor, prepared herself for the coming baby.  Even if
Scott hadn’t been in jail, Sunny felt certain he wouldn’t be doing those things
for her.

Swinging the car around in the
driveway, Sunny headed for the road, waving to her sister out the open window.

*        *        *

Sunny drove with the window open, the
warm wind of passage in her hair.  With every mile, the carnations took a
further beating, but she knew ultimately it wouldn’t matter.  The scent was
still there, blowing around the car.  Occasionally other scents entered in from
the roadside, tar, and cows, and the greasy odors from a restaurant’s exhaust
fan, and then she was on the highway, speeding.  She didn’t seem to be able to
help herself.

When she finally reached the exit she
turned onto a rural road once more, driving slowly, reluctant now to reach her
destination.  Locating the church, and the aged, canted headstones, she drew a
deep breath and put on her left blinker, pulling onto the shoulder opposite the
church’s driveway.  She sat in the car with the engine running, staring at the
open door of the small, stuccoed building.  A wedding was taking place.  On a
Wednesday afternoon.  What the hell was up with that?

Putting the little Hyundai back in
gear, she glanced in the mirror and pulled out into the road, continuing on her
way.  Well, good luck to them, she thought.

Though the sign for the State
Hospital loomed stark and utilitarian, the flowered border made a pleasant
counterpoint.  Sunny followed the signs to the visitors’ lot and parked,
listening as the song on the disc played out, her heart fluttering. Prior to today,
she hadn’t been permitted to visit and she had to be honest with herself:  She
was afraid he wouldn’t know her, wouldn’t want her, wouldn’t…anything. 

Gathering everything out of the back
seat, Sunny shut the door with her hip, managing by dint of will to manipulate
the automatic lock on her key chain.  She blew her hair out of her eyes.  A
light sheen of perspiration dotted her brow. 

The doctor had at least been kind
enough to speak to her whenever she called about Roger’s progress.  Apparently,
the episode in the barn, Sunny throwing herself in front of Scott and the
shotgun, had triggered something for him.  The doc said Roger insisted it was
memory, but it was doubtful.  Whatever had happened, it had caused Roger to relive
the trauma of fifteen years earlier, a profound setback when he had done so
well in building a life since then.  A medical term existed for it that Sunny
couldn’t remember.

Making her way across the parking lot
in a constant balancing act, she reached the glass doors.  Fortunately for her
they opened automatically.  She went inside.

“I’m here for my appointment to see
Roger Macleod,” she told the woman at the desk.

“Name?”

“Sunny.  Sunny O’Connell.”

“Right through those doors and to the
elevator,” the woman told her with a nod. “Second floor.  He should be in the conservatory. 
Oh, and you’ll have to leave those flowers here.  Some of our patients are
allergic.”

Allergic?  What on earth was in the
conservatory, then?  Still, Sunny didn’t argue.  With a great deal of fumbling,
she set the carnations on the corner of the reception desk.

On the second floor, she expected to
be stopped by someone, security or a nurse.  But the lobby outside the elevator
stood open and airy and unmanned, and didn’t have the look of a mental health
facility, at least not her preconceived notion of one.  A man in a suit coat
walked toward her, heading for the elevator.  Glancing at her face he slowed,
then stopped.

“You’re Sunny,” he said.

She looked at him.  “Yes,” she said,
brows lowering.

“Roger keeps that picture you sent
with him all the time.  It’s getting a little dog-eared in his pocket.”

Sunny felt a flush of warmth, of
hope.  “You’re Dr. Stevens?”

When he nodded, she adjusted her
burden, holding out her hand, finding his grasp was friendly and confident, his
fingers strong.

“He’ll be happy to see you.”

Sunny smiled.  She nodded at the
magazines on the top of the pile in her arms.  “We’re getting married,” she
announced, knowing she sounded inane as she did it.  “I thought he might want
to see the dress I picked out.”

Smiling, the doctor patted her on the
shoulder before turning around to walk her to the conservatory, where he left
her at the door.

*        *        *

Sunny observed him for a long time,
not letting him know she was there.  His hair had grown during confinement.  It
lay along his neck in glistening, dark locks.  He was still tall, of course,
still lean and hard, even in his baggy hospital attire.  She could see the
movement of the muscles in his arms as he worked, cultivating the beds of the
vegetables growing in the conservatory.  She wondered he didn’t sense her gaze
as she stood there, careful not to rustle the items in her arms.

Suddenly, he spoke.  “Sunny,” he said
without turning around, “quit watching me and get over here.”

With a small cry, she dropped
everything in a nearby chair and ran across the floor as he stood up, tall,
taller than any man she knew, solid and warm and still smelling the way she
remembered as she buried her face against his chest.  He put his arms around
her.  She could scent the damp earth on his hands.

“I’ve been afraid,” she said, her
tears dampening the light green cotton of his shirt.  “Afraid that you…that you…”

“Hush,” he whispered, bending to
press his mouth against her hair.  “I love you, Sunny.  And didn’t I promise
you that I would love you for the rest of my life?”

EPILOGUE

“Last pill, Roger.  You’ve been weaned. 
I guess the day after tomorrow you go home, eh?  I’ll miss you, buddy.  Miss
that pretty girlfriend of yours, too.”

“Thanks,” Roger answered.  “Hopefully
you’ll write or something, because I don’t plan on coming back here.”

Roger watched the orderly stroll
away, and then he casually raised his hand to his mouth, spitting the pill out
into his palm.  He tossed the round tablet into the undergrowth.   There was no
weaning involved.  He’d stopped taking the meds the day he saw Sunny again for
the first time.

Sitting in the chair, he turned
toward the sun.  The leaves had begun their change, moving from the static
green of summer to the orange and gold and russet browns of autumn.  On his lap
he held the book Sunny had brought to him that day when she’d come to see him
for the first time, the one she’d received from the Preservation Society.  She
didn’t know it yet, but she’d given him a gift beyond imagining.

He knew who he was.

Flipping open the pages, he stared at
the name on the page.  His name.  Included was what remained of an article in
an eighteenth-century periodical.  The reporting outlined how one young Roger
Macleod, carpenter turned highwayman—highwayman, that was something—had cheated
the hangman when the rope broke during the course of his execution and he
disappeared without a trace, presumably, so the article went, through the
assistance of one of his associates.

No associate, Roger mused, just a
bizarre and improbable circumstance that he still couldn’t quite get his mind
around.  The dates were the same, of the execution and his being found by the
bus driver on the road, the anniversary for which was just two days from now
and  two-hundred and thirty-nine years apart. 

Sunny would help him with this.  They
would work through it together. 

For a long time he had been alone. 
He wasn’t alone anymore.

Other books from Celia Ashley:

Midnight Hearts
(April 2014)

Dark Fall From Grace
(May 2014)

For more information, visit the
author at
www.celiaashley.com/

________________

Books from Celia Ashley writing as
Robin Maderich:

Hurry Home For Christmas
(April 2014)

I Knew In A Moment
(June 2014)

For more information, visit the
author’s website at
www.robinmaderich.com/