The Time Warden's Son

Chapter 12

I slept without dreaming. It had been a long time since I had experienced such a restful, undisturbed sleep. I awoke to an equally satisfying scene. I laid on my back on my own bed, in my own room. Light streamed in through my window. Everything smelled fresh and clean.

I laid there for a while, listening to the birds peeping and tittering outside, and just enjoying the moment in general. I looked out the window at the white, clean snow that thickly blanketed the yard. I sunk deeper into my warm bed.

Soon, I became aware of voices and movement somewhere else in the house. I went to swing out of bed but checked my vigor when pain shot through my leg. Slowly, I eased myself to my feet, using the foot of the bed for support. A soft cast covered my left leg.

A single crutch lay up against a wall, in a corner. I tucked it under my shoulder and slowly limped out of the room. Doc lounged in the La-Z-Boy and Pete sat on the couch. When they saw me, everything went silent. I didn't doubt that, like me, they didn't know what to say. Pete got up and helped me take a seat in the middle of the couch, "You shouldn't be out of bed."

"How do you feel?" Doc asked.

"I feel pretty good actually," I replied, "How's Miriam?"

Doc shifted in his seat and Pete looked down at his hands, but it was Pete who spoke, "She's holding her own. Her fever broke early this morning, she still asleep, though."

"How long have I been asleep?"

"Three days."

Pete jumped up and steady me when I jolted out of my seat.

"Whoa there, David. You aren't even supposed to be out of bed yet, take it easy."

"I need to see Miriam."

Pete looked over at Doc who gave a slight nod in return. Pete guided me through the hallway and helped me settle into the seat next to Miriam's bed before resting the door shut behind himself as he left. Miriam lay propped up on a pile of pillows. Her face possessed a pale hue and pink veins ringed in black and blue spider-webbed up her arm. But she was breathing. She was alive.

What if I had lost her? No amount of distance I put between her and me would ever change that. I took her hand in mine and sat silently, listening to her breath, listening to her live. The pain of loss would always haunt me, but the pain of loneliness was mine to take or leave.

I sat next to her bed the rest of the day. Pete and Doc would come in periodically and implore me to go back to bed, promising to stay with Miriam while I rested, but I refused to leave her side.

I spotted her bible on her nightstand. I picked it up and turned to a passage in John, one Doc had read to me many times.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Then, I turned to Psalm.

"Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name Jah, and rejoice before him. A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation."

I must have dozed off when it started to get dark because I awoke to a sharp pang in my leg. It had cramped after hours of sitting. Still half asleep, I shifted to a more comfortable position and fully intended to go back to sleep.

"David?"

My eyes flew open. I looked towards Miriam, hoping beyond hope that I hadn't dreamed her voice. I almost jumped for joy when I saw her smiling back at me. She was awake! She was all right!