SYNCHRONICITY (Dream Walker) 🖋

Alison - 2

Alison woke in the middle of the night and rose to put David's guitar away. She looked toward David and smiled. "I'll be here tomorrow for supper. I thought we could have filet mignon. What do you think hon?" She reached for her coat and slipped her arms in the sleeves. Picking up her purse, she leaned down and kissed his brow. A night nurse came in to check his vitals.

"See you tomorrow then? Unless the world comes to an end, that is."

The nurse chuckled and nodded as she wrote on her clipboard.

"Good night Megan," Alison said as she walked out of the darkened room. "Tell my mother in law hi for me when she gets in? I never see her anymore."

"I will Misses McNaulty. I'm off tomorrow, gonna go look at wedding gowns when I get out of here," Megan said. "I am so excited!"

Alison smiled warmly and nodded her head as she remembered a snippet from her own wedding. "Don't settle for the first one you fall in love with," she giggled.

"That's exactly what my mom said!"

Alison held her hand out and took the nurse's hand in hers. "Well, maybe she's not as full of it as you once thought, huh?"

Megan shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe not?"

"I'll see you when you come back then? Oh, take lots of pictures? I want to see everything!"

Megan nodded. "I will! Good night. Drive carefully. It was raining pretty hard when I came in."

"Yeah, I heard the thunder," Alison sighed. "See ya!"

Needing to stretch her legs and grab a cup of coffee, Alison walked the corridor of the ICU, trying not to hear the sniffles and tears being shed over a patient who had just passed away. But she couldn't help but look in through the door into the eyes of the distraught man sitting by his wife's bedside. Her eyes welled up and she nodded. He took a deep breath and nodded. Earlier in the afternoon, she spoke briefly with him.

He had ambled up to the small room that held a coffee pot for the visitors of the ICU and as she poured coffee into the small paper cup for him, she asked how his wife was doing. The man had shaken his head. "Not good. Her sister is practically begging for me to sign the papers..."

Alison closed her eyes. She was quite aware of the papers, as she'd been handed a set to look over. She took the papers to her husband's attorney to look over; a standard permission to cut off life support. With her permission, he had made a phone call to the hospital to learn that his client still had brain function going on, although it was sporadic. He advised that because her husband had a DNR on file and that legally, it had to be honored. But if there was a chance that he could still have a functioning life, he could still be on life support. He had cautioned that she shouldn't wait to long though...the hospital was slowly eating at their finances. She didn't feel that was reason enough to give up on him.

"He wouldn't want to be left a vegetable," she said to his mother.

"I know that," Marge said. "I just...I just can't lose my son..."

"I don't want to lose him either," Alison replied.

People on Facebook were constantly still sending get-well messages up on their business' page for him and even more for thoughts and prayers, and some for her to stay strong. It was when she received a call from David's mentor, a man who'd been in the business of animal behavior for over fifty years that caused her to break down and actually do some soul searching.

The man's crisp British accent was almost nonexistent anymore as he'd been living in the US for over thirty years, but it was his dialect that reminded her of where he was from; it reminded her of a boy she used to like when she was a teenager.

"Ali, I don't envy your position, Dear," he had said. "I've known David very well and for a very long time," he began and chuckled. "Well, not as well as you've known him of course. I remember the first time I was actually able to speak to you on your own. You were sitting alone in the bar while you waited for him to finish up with the board meeting. Do you remember?"

She nodded and stared into space, remembering as she smiled. "Yeah, you brought reinforcements," she giggled.

"Of course I did! I asked the questions and he watched your reactions"

"That's cheating, Mike."

"Not at all!"

"Uh huh."

"David is one of my best and brightest. Had to make sure that you weren't going to lead him astray..."

"Oh please," she replied. "I remember the look on both of your faces when you asked me if I was a trainer and I told you 'not officially'."

"I never understood what you meant by that, Dear? David said that it was because and I quote, 'she didn't have all those fancy letters behind her name."

"Yup," Alison replied.

"Well, now you do."

"Yeah. And it's all your fault!"

Mike laughed into the phone and quieted down quickly. "Don't wait too long. It'll only serve to torture you."

She nodded. "Yeah, I'm beginning to feel it." She sighed. "Mike, I can't bear to think that he's suffering."

"I don't think he is. Not literally."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I think he may be lost in his own mind. I've spoken to some people I know, you know, doctor-types..."

"And?"

"Cut him loose Darling," he said gently. "The longer you wait, the harder it will be for you."

"So...if you love something, set it free...is that what you mean?"

"Exactly."

She drove toward home braving the torrential rain, taking it slow...what should have taken her eleven minutes to get home, took her almost twenty. She grimaced at the poor soul sitting next to her at the light...the biker stuck in the rain. She watched him take the road slow and she beeped the horn and he turned his head toward her. She rolled down her window just enough to get her hand out and pointed toward herself and then pointed forward and then behind him. He nodded and pointed behind him...she figured that he'd want her in front. She ended up driving behind him for about two miles, where he turned off the road. He waved as he turned his bike and accelerated up the hill, for momentum to help with traction. Heh, she thought. Gotta love physics...

She breathed easier once she pulled into her driveway, her car traveling at a snail's pace past her neighbor's house, their barn and second pasture. She continued through the path that led her up the hill, beneath the canopy of trees. Finally, the lights of her house came into view. She eased her car into the space next to the house, right next to an empty space where David would park his truck. She wondered about his own motorcycle...it was a monster of a machine...she knew how to operate it, even had an addendum added to her driver's license...David wanted her to be able to legally operate it in the event that he couldn't. She complied. And when he came home with a Harley of her own, tied down on their small trailer, she smiled...She hoped that they'd had the time to enjoy them.

They never did get to go out and ride...they had plenty of chances, but were always too busy with other things.

She got out of the car thinking that she'd show up on the bike clad in leather at his funeral...thinking of the shocked faces at his funeral made her laugh.

But hell, David would have loved it.