“Oh, you’ll love this.
“I was down here one day taking care of some business elsewhere. And, I started coughing. Could not stop it. Right then I saw that Fresh ‘n’ Fruity Juice Shoppe and thought I better stop and get a drink. I was planning to just get an iced down soda or sweet iced tea.
“But, the place was filled with other customers and they all had juices. So I decided to try one.
“Now this next part you have to promise me you’ll never tell another living soul.”
“What did you do, steal it?” Conyer asked.
“No!” answered Aunt Tierney in horror, slightly swatting his shoulder. “I would never have done that!”
“I’m only teasing you, Aunt Tierney. And, I promise I won’t tell anyone… well, not as long as you’re alive, anyway.”
Aunt Tierney reached over and swatted Conyer’s arm again.
“Ok, ok. I promise.”
Aunt Tierney shot him a sideways you-better-not look, then continued the scenario.
“Anyway…” she said, “I ordered one, and was walking to an available table. I decided I might as well give my full attention to this new drink delight. But, as I was walking to the table, I could hear these two young teenagers talking really loud at the table next to the one I was headed for. One of them was telling the other one a joke.
“I don’t remember the whole joke, just the punchline… ‘Not on my jungle gym!’ The whole thing just seemed so funny and I started to laugh, which meant I was probably going to end up spitting out that mouthful of drink. I was determined that wouldn’t happened, because it was so classless, so I forced my mouth to stay shut. Only problem was, I still couldn’t stop the laugh…”
“And?…” Conyer prodded her.
“And… I started laughing so hard that the drink spewed out my nose and all over my dress.”
“No…” said, Conyer with a shocked voice, as he leaned toward her for details.
“Yes. And here’s the part that I would be mortified if anyone had any idea it happened.
“I was so embarrassed, I didn’t know what to do, so I faked fainting, and fell to the floor like a sack of potatoes, and just laid there.”
“You did not do that!”
“Yes, I’m sorry to say, I did.
“The owner of the store was there that day. He was so sweet and gentle with me, and took such good care of me, offering to dry clean my dress, have an ambulance come get me and take me to the hospital ER to check things out, and he gave me a certificate for unlimited juices for one whole year. I was so grateful, and felt so deceitful, that I told him I wanted to buy his business. Conyer, he never blinked. He said yes, and that was that!”
“I can’t believe that. What did Uncle Derrick say?”
“I never told him. I only said that we were buying the juice shop and would be expanding it statewide.”
“And, what did he say?”
“What do you think he said?”
At the exact same moment, they said in unison, “‘Oh… ok.’” Laughter ensued. When it died down, Conyer was the first to speak.
“I miss Uncle Derrick,” he said, with real sadness weighing on his heart. “No one spent as much time with me after Mom’s and Dad’s deaths as he did. One of my biggest memories of him is when I was about seven or eight.
“You,” Conyer said, pointing to his aunt, “were gone doing some charity something or other and he was watching over me. He asked if I wanted to play a game. I told him yes, so he told me to go to the games armoire and pick out anything I wanted and we’d play.
“While I was looking through all the possibilities, he went to the kitchen and made us both his rendition of a fruit smoothie. I don’t know what he put in it, but it was utterly disgusting. At least from my seven- or eight-year-old perspective.”
By now, Aunt Tierney was smiling broadly, remembering her husband Derrick’s enthusiasm over every aspect of life.
“He, on the other hand, thought it was great and consumed not only his twelve ounce glass, but at least six to eight ounces of mine, when I didn’t drink it as quickly as he thought I would… or should.
“Anyway,” he continued, “out of all the games in that armoire, the only one that I was familiar with was Twister.”
“Twister… which one is that?” Aunt Tierney asked with a puzzled look on her face as she continued navigating the street in ‘Belinda,’ the name she had given her new and already beloved black Lexus.
“It’s that one where you put the plastic canvas on the floor. It’s covered with brightly colored circles…”
“Oh,” she interrupted, “then you spin and put your hand or foot on the specified color and keep going until someone falls down. I remember that one. I never played it, though. It seemed so undignified. Yes, I do remember that one. So, what happened?”
“He never told you? Wow, you two had lots of secrets, didn’t you.”
“Stop that and tell me what happened,” Aunt Tierney said, as she lightly shook her head as though Conyer was almost more trouble than he was worth.
“Well, it took us a while to get into the rhythm of the game, so the juice drink had plenty of time to work its way through his system. On one subsequent turn…”
Laughing already, Aunt Tierney could apparently visualize the punch line to the story.
“Did he wet himself?!”
“He was stretched from one end of the board to the other on that turn. He started laughing, and next thing we both knew, he had ‘baptized’ the board, the floor… and me.”
“I don’t believe you! You’re making this up! That never happened!” After denying the whole story as either fiction or a lie, she realized that in fact, she believed Conyer, and she began laughing harder, and began to swerve on the street, having difficulty staying in her lane. Conyer assumed she was just hysterically laughing, having enjoyed his story…
Until he looked at her in the face. Expecting to see her joyful and fun-loving features, he realized her face was screwed up in excruciating pain, one hand on the steering wheel, while the other one clutched her chest.
Continuing to press the accelerator with more pressure as Aunt Tierney writhed in pain, they picked up speed. Unneeded speed, considering they were coming close to entering the intersection ahead, with the intention of making a left turn.
When Conyer couldn’t dislodge her foot from the pedal, he had to use his own foot, ramming her leg to move it. He could hear the snap of her ankle bone when he made contact. All the while, Aunt Tierney was clutching her chest and rearing her head back.
By the time Conyer realized that he needed to take reign over the steering wheel to correct their path, it was too late, so he opted for grabbing her upper body and pulling her toward himself in the passenger seat, hoping he could protect her to some degree, since it was obvious her side would take the brunt of the crash.
What he managed to do however, was move her body only far enough that the right side of the steering wheel caught her violently across the chest upon impact. That alone would have killed her. Conyer would never know, but she never felt it. She had already been catapulted into the presence of her Lord.
Chapter 2
Three excruciating weeks had passed in Clayton Memorial for two of its patients. Twenty-nine year old Conyer Whitefield and twenty-three year old Giselle Danvers. Each of them had been virtually pried from their cars, and whisked away to the “healing halls” of the largest hospital in the tri-county area.
While Giselle had been unconscious when she arrived at Clayton Memorial, Conyer had not. He remembered every miserable and painful tug as the ambulance staff ripped him from the car, placing him on a padded, but still stiff-surfaced gurney, wheeling him to the ambulance, and whisking him away to the hospital. Although conscious, he was, however, in shock. Even in the obvious pain he suffered, judging from the moans and groans that emitted from his lips, the only words he kept voicing were, “How’s my aunt?” and “What about the people in the other car?”
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The ambulance staff was efficient, if not obliging him with answers to his multitudinous requests for information on the condition of the others involved in the car crash. Once they’d attached his IV, relayed his stats from the emergency vehicle to the attending physician in the hospital’s ER wing, they continued their journey to the hospital in relative silence, other than the white noise conveyed to them via their radio. Silence, that is, until a voice came back on the radio.
“Are we talking about Conyer Whitefield, as in Derrick and Tierney Whitefield?”
“Just a moment, and we’ll check,” responded one of the emergency services workers.
“Are you related to Derrick and Tierney Whitefield?” one of them asked Conyer.
“Yes. My aunt and u…” he responded until the grip of pain became overwhelming. Reaching for his leg, the worker on that side took hold of his hand, keeping it from grabbing the injury, and held it until it again became limp. He then replaced it on the gurney next to Conyer, this time beneath the strap that kept him captive on its surface.
“Yes, this is the nephew,” was the response from the ambulance to the faceless voice on the other end of the radio.
“This is Doctor Timeron. Please bring this patient directly to x-ray. Do not take him through Registration. Understood?”
“Understood,” responded the driver of the ambulance.
“I’m looking at his charts here. And, it sounds in the background there like he’s in pain. Give him…” and he continued to specify the pain medication and dosage to be administered through the IV line.
Once the call had been disconnected, the driver threw the following comment over his shoulder to the two attending emergency workers in the back, “The Whitefields must be something special to get this kinda treatment for their nephew.”
“Ah… nepotism, ain’t it grand?!” said one of the other workers. When there was total silence in response, he further said, “Don’t worry. He’s out. Didn’t hear a word!” And, while he was wrong, Conyer had heard every word, none of it registered because of the potent pain medication beginning to flow through his veins.
*****
Giselle had been the biggest problem in evacuation. Aunt Tierney was already deceased, and Conyer, while seriously injured, had not born the brunt of the impact. Giselle, on the other hand, while unconscious, was still breathing, but almost puzzle-pieced into the accordion pleated metal that kept her in position behind the steering wheel. It was a slow removal process.
When standard measures of removing the car door were accomplished, that ended what could be done without the Jaws-of-Life machinery. Fortunately, someone amongst all the attending workers had had the foresight to summon this special piece of machinery, so once the door and roof were removed, they could move right in.
From the onlookers’ perspective, it appeared that this person was going to be a fatality. Low moans of sympathy came from them as they watched the door removed, but once they could see clearly into the mauled insides of the car, they gasped loudly when they saw Giselle. She seemed to be in what was almost a ridiculous, completely impossible contortion amongst the metal.
The roof was grasped between metal claws, ripped away, and slowly they extracted her from the wreckage. Placing her gently, but quickly onto the gurney, they couldn’t seem to get her to the rescue vehicle fast enough.
And it was from that point, unconscious, bruised, broken, and torn, that Giselle Danvers was whisked away to the IC unit at Clayton Memorial. It didn’t look good. It didn’t look good at all!
*****
During the last three weeks, five days of her stay in the hospital was spent in ICU. The staff was ever vigilant over Giselle around the clock.
Between the one hundred-thirteen sutures needed to close wounds on both arms, both legs, and her torso, and the concussion over which the staff was ever vigilant, Giselle had undergone surgery to place a screw in her left knee just to insure the integrity of that leg’s future functionality. So much damage to such a delicate little body!
During those first few days, the IC unit had worn a pall over its halls. The staff was used to the sights and sounds of those who clung precariously to life, many of them losing their battle. But, when Giselle entered those same halls, it felt completely different to the staff. Even when receiving a continuous drip of pain medication, she moaned and groaned, at all hours of the day and night. The compassionate doctors, nurses, and even the janitorial staff wandered into her room unbidden. Some would check her vitals, even though it wasn’t needed at that time; some simply stood and watched her in her pain, and yet another, Conyer Whitefield, maneuvered his wheelchair right up to the side of her bed, took her hand gently and prayed that the Lord would please help this beautiful young woman. He prayed for her far more than he asked for any healing for himself.
Having insisted on knowing Giselle’s location in the hospital on Day One, Conyer had visited Giselle multiple times daily while she was in ICU, which is exactly where he was as well. Truth be known, however, he was really only in the ICU because of his family ties to the Whitefield hospital benefactors, who gave exorbitantly large sums of money to the hospital. The staff were given special instructions that they make sure Conyer was a “happy camper” at all times while in residence.
At first, Conyer was in a wheelchair, with someone pushing him to Giselle’s room. During the five minute wheelchair ride from his room to hers, the assigned attendant would ask repeatedly if Conyer was ok. After the third or fourth time, Conyer would simply give the attendant the ok-that’s-enough look. True, he was in pain and the attached IV made things a little awkward, but he was determined to attend to her, despite his own extensive injuries. Because Giselle was unconscious, Conyer was unable to communicate with her. But, he could pray for her, and that’s exactly what he did.
While praying, Conyer always checked whatever areas of Giselle’s body were exposed for the condition of her wounds. Each area on her arms containing sutures, he laid his fingers lightly on the wound and pray specifically that the Lord would heal that place.
When Giselle was moaning in pain, Conyer’s whole body would tense up and he’d hold to her hand so tightly that Giselle, even in her agony of pain from other unrelated parts of her body, would wince and try to jerk her hand away. He’d then loosen his grip, but not let go. Somehow he needed the physical connection, obviously more than Giselle did at that point.
When she was quiet, eyes closed in a drugged sleep, Conyer had a different activity that occupied his visits. After finishing his prayers for her, he would begin telling her stories about his youth. He wasn’t exactly sure why he did it, but since he didn’t know what else to talk to her about, that was the topic he chose. He began with the Twister-story that included his Uncle Derrick, then worked his way to the Fresh-‘n’-Fruity-Juice-Shoppe story starring his Aunt Tierney.
From that point, anything was fair game. Conyer told Giselle about the time he held on to the rear bumper of his Uncle Derrick’s car while wearing his skates, almost managing to do himself considerable damage when his uncle broke quickly to avoid hitting a dog that darted into the street, and he’d flown under the car.
Moving on, there was the time he’d asked a girl out on a date in high school. By the time he’d gotten to the girl’s house, he was so nervous that as soon as he’d been invited into the house, he’d made a bee-line for their bathroom, where he vomited on the floor, because he couldn’t make it all the way to the toilet. So mortified he couldn’t face any of them, he opened the bathroom window, climbed out, and drove home. Of course, he didn’t want them to know he’d defected until after he was long gone, so he didn’t turn on his headlights before driving off. And, of course, he managed to crash into two full trash cans he never saw at the curb, throwing filth all over that neighbor’s beautifully manicured grass… and the wrought iron love seat that adorned the front lawn.
There had to be at least fifteen different tales from Conyer’s childhood that he’d shared
with an elegantly graceful-looking, beautiful and broken young woman who seemingly didn’t hear a single word of any of them.
Through talking with Dr. Timeron, on-duty nurses, and careless chit-chat around the nurses’ station, Conyer had learned that Giselle Danvers was, in fact, a ballerina. She had trained at what was arguably the finest performance school in the United States and was scheduled to be leaving with her co-performers on a tour of Europe within the next week. She was planning to be gone for a complete tour, returning in the spring of the following year. Dr. Timeron had shared with Conyer on one doctor-patient visit that he and his wife had tickets to one of the performances at Palais Garnier in Paris, close to where they planned to vacation later in the season.
Conyer took the brochure offered to him for his perusal. When he saw the extravagance of Palais Garnier, he winced. The entire structure inside and out wreaked of wealth and culture, the dreamed-of world for many young dancers.
Conyer pulled his gaze back up to the doctor, asking with his eyes if this young woman would ever be able to resume her beloved dancing. Dr. Timeron could not give Conyer any spoken assessment or prognosis, because of doctor-patient privilege. But, words were not necessary. The doctor’s furrowed brow and saddened eyes told Conyer everything he needed to know. Unless the Lord interceded, her dancing days were unequivocally over.
*****
On Day Four, Conyer was both out of ICU and out of the wheelchair, transporting himself on crutches up to Giselle’s room. It was slow-going, but he had been faithful to his routine of making the trek back-and-forth to see her several times daily.
Exhausting himself by the time he reached Giselle’s room on one particular visit, he was delighted to see she was awake and eating. Actually, she was taking small bites of anemic-looking pudding, each time screwing up her face in an involuntary response, obviously relaying her distaste for it.
“Enjoying that, are you?” Conyer jokingly asked her. When her sad eyes looked up to see a most attractive man in silk pajamas and expensive robe entering her room on crutches, she had no idea who he was, other than another patient. Tired, in pain, and not really wanting any visitors, she still couldn’t bring herself to be other than at least nominally pleasant to him.