All the Way to Heaven

Chapter 16

The next forty-eight hours were spent in fevered misery, through which I did what I usually do when I'm sick. I slept. More often than not, my pain woke me up to remind me to take my medicine and use the restroom. Isa and Claudia came and went, bearing glasses of water, bowls of hot soup, tea, and cool washcloths. After checking my throat and ears, along with my injuries for any blossoming infections, Cosimo assured us all that my fever was most likely due to my contact with the sick man on the plane. My immune system, he explained, was weakened by traveling and being exposed to unfamiliar germs, my sleep disrupted by the time change, and my body was working hard on my injuries on top of everything else. Did a broken heart lower one's immunity to illness? I didn't see why not. I thanked everyone profusely every time I was awake and lucid enough to do so.

It was Saturday night when I awoke, feeling frail and almost boneless, but significantly better. Someone had turned on a low-watt lamp beside the chair in the far corner of the room, the muted amber glow throwing long shadows across the floor. From the sounds of clinking dishes and boisterous conversation filtering down the hall, even in my slightly befuddled state, I could tell it was dinnertime.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it would be like to join the family for a meal. Out on the terrace, elbow to elbow to make room for family and friends, pulled up to a long table covered in creamy linens. Ceramic place settings, serving platters of roasted meat and savory vegetables, tureens of aromatic soups, and baskets piled high with crusty loaves of bread. Stemmed glasses standing at the ready for the fount of Dionysus, opened bottles of ruby elixir breathing in the Tuscan sunset. Strings of lights crisscrossing the portcullis framework overhead, twinkling into life as twilight settled like a velvet blanket over the sun. It was an artwork of adjectives, I realized, a scene I'd sketched over and over in my mind. But because I had yet to experience it first-hand, it sat frozen in time, paused at the moment before commencement. A still life.

"Not anymore," I declared out loud, reaching up to curl a hand around my throat. Still a little raw, it no longer hurt to talk. "Before this week is over, I'm going to climb inside that picture and yell 'Action!'" I chuckled at the visual that evoked, even though I knew I was much funnier in my head than in reality. It seemed so strange that I'd been here for three days and still had no idea what the dining room looked like. Or the kitchen. Or the terrace. Or much of anything besides my room and the bathroom and the hallway between, for that matter.

Tomorrow, I'd get out of bed, out of this room, maybe even outside. I would lie low tonight, though, and hope someone would take pity on me at some point and bring me a tray of leftovers. I'd send a few emails, and maybe, if I could keep from sounding like a wrung-out dishrag, place a phone call to my mother later, after the guests had gone for the night. I could only imagine what was going through her mind after the email I'd taken a moment to dash off last night, informing her that I was being well-cared for but had gotten sick on top of everything else. Even though she now had the Lazzaros' phone number and address, she wouldn't check up on me without good cause, but knowing her, she'd most likely been hovering near the phone and watching her email updates from me. I was grateful, once again, for Tish, who would assure my parents like no one else could. Tish, the ultimate spin doctor, with her spiky black hair, wide, expressive blue eyes, and her incredibly dry humor, giving them her version of my story over chicken and broccoli casserole. She would make them smile, laugh, and cover their faces in mock despair over my humiliating familial representation, and they would worry just the slightest bit less.

I was in desperate need of a bath first, and a clean set of sheets, too, especially if my fever had broken for the last time, which I was fairly certain was the case. I carefully maneuvered myself into my chair, encouraged to find that the pain in my ankle, although still awful, felt more isolated, more tolerable. It didn't throb so fiercely the moment I lowered it to the floor, and the brace seemed a little loose. That must mean the swelling was going down and it was time to tighten the straps. I knew Claudia kept spare bed linens in the armadio where Isa had put my clothes when she unpacked for me, so I rolled my chair over to it, found a fresh set, and grabbed clean pajama shorts and a tank top.

After laboriously wrestling the clean sheets into semi-submission on the bed, wheeling my chair from one corner of the mattress to the next, I tossed the old ones in a pile by the door. I'd ask Isa to show me where the washing machine was next time she came in. There was no reason to expect them to do that for me, too.

With a sense of accomplishment, I headed across the hall to the bathroom, praying no one would hear me and come check on me. I really did feel considerably better, and I was curious as to how much I could actually manage on my own. A tranquil hot bath sounded divine and I certainly did not want to disrupt a lovely meal if it wasn't necessary.

By the time I had dried off, dressed in my clean clothes with my hair washed and towel-dried, my left ankle was throbbing again. But it was clean, and I'd shaved, so it wasn't prickly either. Purple and black and hurting like the dickens, but no longer quite so... zombie-esque. I wished I still had my phone so I could take pictures. Tish would love to see this.

I replaced my brace but left my hands unwrapped, then brushed out my hair, opting to let it air dry instead of going in search of my blow-dryer. I tidied up the bathroom the best I could from my chair and rolled quietly across the hall to the room I was quickly beginning to think of as my own. Backing into the room, I paused and listened from just inside the open door. Cheerful voices drifted to me from farther away than before. The group must have moved outside to the back terrace. I couldn't wait until tomorrow to see it for myself.

No one seemed the wiser of my comings and goings and I grinned, as though I was getting away with something. I closed my door, the click of the latch startlingly loud in the sudden stillness of the room.

The light in the corner still glowed warmly, butI let out a startled squeal when the shadows shifted.