Demicore

Chapter 2

The first had been an older woman. She was overweight with a kindly face and salt and pepper hair. Within a second, the other woman appeared. She was younger, Erik had told the girls all of their life that their mother had been only 21 when she had been attacked. She had blonde hair and was slender, but shapely. She looked very much like Katlin.

The team of doctors and nurses worked for hours but could not, in the end, do anything for Carol. The only consolation was that she was not in pain when she passed. They were, however, able to save Elizabeth, though she was still in critical condition. No matter how he was begged, pleaded to, or (only once and the doctor was physically thrown from the house) ordered to transfer her to a hospital, he stayed by the decision to watch over her in their old bedroom. He had all the equipment he would need in there already.

Three days he sat by her side as nothing and everything seemed to happen. His mind replayed the events leading up to her return as he watched her condition refuse to improve. Sonya and Katlin made the arrangements for the funeral of their grandmother. Erik refused to leave the side of his wife even to attend the funeral.

On the fourth day, she started to move her hands in response to his voice, but still did not wake. He turned off some of the machines supporting her life one by one as her body began to support its own existence again. Finally, all that was left was the I.V. providing her with the nourishment necessary to maintain her life while she was yet unconscious and the question if she would ever come out of this coma.

For another two weeks he sat by her side wondering when – and if – she would wake and what all he should tell her if she did. Sonya and Katlin visited them daily and talked with their father about what should or should not be said right away. They were very glad to see their mother improving and curious as to whether or not she would wake, but the most pressing thing on the minds of the girls was whether or not Elizabeth would believe that they were indeed her children. Would she even accept the fact that she had been in a time-lapse portal and that they had lived long enough to retrieve her?

On the nineteenth day after her return, Elizabeth’s eyes opened. She turned her head to see Erik looking anxiously at her.

"Erik," she whispered. It was barely audible, but it made his eyes fill up with tears of joy.

"Yes, Love, I am here," he managed to say as he slid from his chair to kneel beside the bed and grasp her hand in one of his own as he reached to touch her face with the other.

"Hold me? I had the most horrible dream . . ." her faint voice trailed off.

The tears were not from joy as he said, "Rest a little while and tell me about it." How will I tell her that it was not a dream? How will I explain what all has happened and that she has been legally dead for over a century? He laid down next to her and fell asleep holding her close to his chest.

Several hours later, she woke again. He gave a start at the sound of her voice. "Erik, I dreamt there was a man with a knife . . ." her voice trailed off as she looked around the room. "Where are the dressers? Why is all of this stuff in here?" She looked into his eyes. There was something different about them. He could tell by the way she stared at them that the years did indeed show there, if no where else.

"My Dearest Love," he began tenderly, "there is much to tell you. I promise that over a little time I will, but I do not think that as soon as you wake up is the appropriate time for all of it." He paused as he searched for the words to continue, "About the man with the knife, it was no dream. That is why there is so much in our room that you don’t recognize, but for now are you hungry at all?"

"Yes, quite," she replied softly with a weak smile.

"You are to start out on liquids and move up from there depending on how well you are doing," he told her, sounding much more like a doctor than she remembered him sounding. He walked over to a small cupboard on wheels and extracted a small can, opened it, placed the contents into a bowl and put them into a warmer like she had never seen but reminded her of a microwave.

"Doctors will never change, will they?" she asked as she watched Erik bring the bowl of broth and set it on the small table beside the bed. He smiled. I am not ready to tell her yet that I hold several doctorates. She is not ready for that information.

"No, in that respect, we don’t change." He handed her the bowl of broth, a spoon, and a paper towel. She eyed him suspiciously and decided to let that one slide. He had always thought of himself as her doctor when he was tending to her during an illness.

She felt a little more stable after the broth and decided to sit up for a while. It was more easily said than done because she found she was sorer than she thought, but they managed to get her braced on a collection of pillows in a semi-upright position. It was only then that she noticed how he was looking at her. He seemed sad almost to the point of depression.

"What is the matter?" she asked gently. A single tear slipped from his eye.

"I am just really glad you’re going to be ok," he told her. More tired than she thought she should be for the amount of time she had been awake, she accepted that excuse but somewhere in the back of her mind was a nagging feeling that he wasn’t telling the whole truth as she drifted back off to sleep.

Again she dreamt of a dark stranger. This time the dream was more vivid and lasted longer. She was in the back of the house doing laundry when she heard her mother yell and she went running to find out what it was… She woke up sobbing. Light was pouring into the room through the open window making the whole room feel surreal. Erik gave a start in the chair beside her bed.

"Mom," she whispered into the air around her, then she turned to him, "Where is my mom? I want to talk to her."

"Elizabeth…" he didn’t know what to say. How do you break that kind of news to someone? Especially her. Things with her always had to be handled just so. "There was nothing that could be done…" he tried again, words sounding more hollow than an empty water jug.

"Nothing that could be done for what?" she asked in disbelief, her tones daring and begging him to be honest and truthful with exactly what she wanted to hear.

"Carol did not survive the attack." This time his words were flat. They had no depth, no inflection, no sincerity or empathy. They just hung in the air as though they were suspended in time and space. Then there was quiet. Erik was deep enough in his own pain that he did not know what to do for her and so he stared blankly into the space between them.

"No," she denied the statement, the feelings, the loss and most of all the emptiness that felt like it was welling up to consume her. "No," she said again more softly as her eyes began to fill with hot tears that spilled over and burned her cheeks.

Erik put an arm around her, "I am so sorry, Love." Emotion had returned to his voice. He was soft, caring. There was no choice but to believe him. Her mother, her best friend. Gone forever. Why did he keep apologizing?