The Light That Guides You Home

Chapter 10

The phone conversation with Dr. Evans had gone better than she'd expected. He'd approved of her having someone there that she would be comfortable with, and seemed to think that it might help her to stay relaxed enough to have the memories come forward if she knew that she was surrounded by people who cared about her, and would keep her safe. To her immense relief, he hadn't seemed too surprised to hear about her hallucinations, either. He was sure they were an effect of the stress and uncertainty she was feeling about this memory recovery undertaking, and nothing to worry about. If it happened again, he'd told her to take deep breaths and just remind herself that it wasn't real, and that a hallucination could not harm her. He did ask about the sleeping pills, and she assured him that she wasn't using them too often. His biggest concern had been about the injury to her foot. He made her promise she would go have it looked at today in case it required stitches, and to be sure she'd gotten all of the bits of plate out of the cut. If she ended up with an infection, he told her, she wouldn't be well enough to work on those memories. She'd agreed, and in fact had gotten stitches in her foot. There were only 3 but it had been about as much fun as stepping on the broken piece of plate in the first place. The urgent care clinic doctor that she saw had also given her a prescription for Amoxicillin, just in case. She was going to get that prescription filled and her sleeping pill prescription refilled, and then go home.

While in line at the pharmacy, she tried to make a mental checklist of things to get done before leaving for Colorado. Today was only Saturday, and she and Ben had agreed to head to the house in Colorado Monday afternoon. That would give her one night there before the doctor and Toni arrived. Ben had wanted to wait until Tuesday when the others were going, but she felt like she needed a little bit of private time before having a whole house full of people. She was a little afraid of what her initial reaction might be when she went into the house for the first time, and didn't want to have a large audience on hand to witness any embarrassing behavior. She had originally planned on going by herself, but when Ben insisted on accompanying her, she hadn't fought too hard. She told herself that she just wanted him along so she wouldn't be so scared, but maybe there was more to it than that. He'd been extremely solicitous these last several days, and while it had seemed odd at first, she was warming to the idea of there being something more than just friendship between her and Ben. It was strange to think of him that way, after years of friendship. Slow down, she had to keep telling herself, you don't even know how he feels about you. He hasn't said or done anything that a good friend wouldn't say or do.

When she had finally made it to second in line, Laura's cell rang. She took a peek, but didn't recognize the number. Before she could decide whether or not to answer, the person in front of her moved away from the counter, so she let it go to voicemail and dropped the phone back into her purse. After collecting her prescriptions, some more antibiotic ointment, larger bandages, and a king size Hershey bar, she left the pharmacy. By the time she got into her car, her foot was really starting to hurt. She'd have to go home and try to keep her weight off of it so that it wouldn't slow her down next week.

Back at home, she sat at her desk in the den taking care of bills that she didn't want to forget while out of town. There would be no internet service at the house and she had no idea what cell coverage would be like, so she intended to take care of everything due over the next week or two before leaving, just to be safe. While she was there, the phone rang. It reminded her of the call to her cell phone earlier, so she grabbed the wireless handset and stood up to take it with her to the kitchen table where she had left her purse. The first step onto her foot felt like being stabbed, and she drew a sharp breath just as she pressed the answer button on the phone.

"Hello?", she managed to say.

"If you ever checked the caller ID before you picked up you would know it was me and wouldn't have to answer like that. Were you expecting bad news? You almost sound like you're in pain." It was Ben, and she was embarrassed to realize that she couldn't wipe the big grin that had just appeared off of her face. At least he couldn't see it.