More Than Eyes Alone Can See
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Tess started to wonder how much worse things could possibly
get before they started to get better, but stopped before she could jinx
herself. That was the last thing she
needed. Besides, if trouble and bad news
did indeeme ime in threes, then there was another misfortune out there looking
to claim someone she had taken under her roof./spa/span>She refused to give it any more power.
//Sí, Marcos, of
course you can all stay with me.\\
on leaving within days before I decided to take in an injured man.
melted. I have tok aok after them. They
came to me. They trust me.
Trust wasn’t enough
to get Tess’ frozen wits to move, however.
As she stood in the middle of her small kitchen with four children of
various ages ranged around her, she fought off the panic and stress that would
overwhelm her mental defenses against the schizophrenia that was always waiting
for her to let her guard down. Even the
booster she had given herself that morning would be hard put to suppress all
the symptoms, and she needed as much control as she could get at the
moment. Plan, plan, plan. I need a
plan. What first?
A question she knew the answer to.
That’s it. She filled her
lungs several times.
Get the children settled, check on ‘Giovanni,’ start some soup for
lunch. That’s enough to do for now.
Marcos shifted on
his feet as the baby started to fuss.
//Señora?\\ The
woman had this blank look on her face, like she was scared and didn’t know what
to do. That was bad.
scared. //Señora?
world. Start talking, start
give into the temptation to hide in her mind, to simply find an unoccupied
corner and ignore things until they got better.
it Tessa. Just sit in a huddle for days
on end until all your problems go away.
I could help you forget your problems.
All you have to do is come play with me.
No! She would not give into
temptation, into madness. She ripped her
attention away from the sweetly cloying voice.
Marcos jumped back as Tess’ eyes suddenly focused on him.
movement. Looking at him, Tess saw how
overwhelmed, how lost and afraid he was, and she felt guilty for adding to his
fears.
//Don’t worry, I
was just thinking.\\
Sspanspan> had to raise her voice to be heard over the baby.
me.\\ Gently
taking the baby from him, she asked, //Her name is Selena, right?\
girl nodded, shy of this strange woman and her even stranger habit of staring
blankly into space. Tess understood what
it was to be shy. She wouldn’t press her
presence on them, but would let them warm up to her in their own time.
them. Besides, a little responsibility
might help him take his mind off other matters.
//Marcos?
where you’ll all be sleeping? There’s
some games in the living room if they would like to play.
do it.\
//Can I see him,
señora?\\
Tess saw the hope
shining in his eyes. For whatever
reason, the boy had decided to attach himself to the mysterious man in her
bedroom. I wish I knew whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Selena on a hip, trying to quiet her.
Content that
everything was as good as it was going to get at the moment,
Tess left the three orphans to their exploring.
********************************************* Tess was incredibly With a semi-happy Her hand was
thankful that she always kept a few baby supplies with her in case of
emergencies. There wasn’t enough to last
for an extended amount of time, but she did have what she needed to change
Selena’s diaper and to fix her a bottle, even though she knew that the young
child was probably hungry for some solid food.
She wasn’t that prepared though.
baby on her hip, she entered the room where Sands was staying.
waiting for her to come back.
he’s dropping off like that. He doesn’t
seem to be the kind of man to let his guard down while in enemy territory.
that was a foolish wish. This man was
suspicious enough of her – he’d end up killing a nurse out of pure nerves.
she’d be content to play with some shoes, Tess approached her patient’s bed.
halfway to his forehead to check his temperature when the gun in his hand
snapped up to point at her face. Well,
about three inched to the right of her face.
“Señor!”
a surety that unnerved her. “It’s just
me, Tessa. Don’t shoot.
twenty-four hours, and I can’t deal with another crazy person right now.”
crazy person?” She didn’t answer, mainly
because she didn’t like how he had honed into that part of her reassuring
speech first.
When he decided
that she wasn’t going to reply, he sighed and lowered the gun.
today? I haven’t had the chance yet.”
“Earlier, when I
was tending your injuries.” He clearly
didn’t remember, but that didn’t surprise her.
She hadn’t thought he was that he had been totally
aware of what had been going on. From
what she knew of such men, they were always sure of what they were doing, even
if they had some reason for doing it that no one else would understand.
before, he must be struggling now to keep a grasp on reality.
lost consciousness last night.”
“I shot you?”
“Yes, right in the
side at point blank range. With my own
gun I might add.”
“Then why aren’t
you in considerably worse shape, niña?” Again he raised his
weapon. “Is there anything else you’d like
to share with me?” he asked mildly, for all the world
as if he were a parent inquiring into a child’s whereabouts when he was
perfectly aware that she was somewhere she shouldn’t be.
Or that I’m really regretting giving you a gun again?
stomach, Tess slowly said, “If you’re asking whether I lied to you or not, the
answer is no. I told you the gun had six
rounds in it, and it did.” She
swallowed, “I just didn’t tell you that they were blanks.”
*********************************************
just run into a fellow agent.
while he could appreciate the careful distribution of information, found he was
upset to find himself at the opposite end of the food chain.
the cards, who was supposed to deal out who got what information like a card
sharp stacks a deck to make sure the odds are in his favor.
to be humored in way way that this woman had humored him?
anyone who thought that they could take advantage of his current disability was
in for a rude awakening.
He was about to set
into a verbal berating that would have made even the most oversexed man in the
country lose his balls when a quiet thud sounded in the corner of the room.
without him having to tell them to.
at whoever had made the sound. Once he
was sure they were dead, then he’d take care of the woman who’d let them in.
just Marcos,” indeed. You just made one
very large mistake, niña.
Unfortunately,
Sands underestimated Tess’ own reflexes.
As soon as she had heard the shoe drop in the corner, she had known what
her patient was going to think and how he was going to react.
finger squeezed the trigger, she slammed her shoulder
into the man’s arm, throwing off his aim.
The three bullets slammed into the wall about a foot from Selena, who
started screaming from the sudden noise of the gunshots.
crying in order to slam his hands over his ears.
frightened little girl were more than his poor head could take.
Thinking that was
the worst of it, Tess relaxed a mere nanosecond before the full scope of the
chaos those three rounds had wrought made itself known.
had further injured Sands or running to make sure Selena was alright,
she heard screams coming from the living room.
Por Díos! she
had forgotten the other two children.
She didn’t know where they had been when their parents were killed, but
it was entirely within the realm of possibility that they had either heard or
seen the whole thing. But no matter
what, hearing a gun fired in the same house they were currently in was going to
scare them, even if they had no idea how their parents had died.
let’s give a severely injured and possibly mentally unbalanced man a
Brilliant idea, Tessa!
for that one.
Scooping up the gun
and placing it on the window sill where she doubted Sands could get to
child was oth other than being scared out of her wits.
living room abruptly come to a stop, as if cut off by a silencing hand.
more than made up for the decrease in noise.
They echoed off the walls and bare floors of Tess’ house, making
everything seem louder.
“Damnit!
“Maybe if you could
manage to keep your overactive trigger finger from sporadically firing at
thithatthat you can’t identify, I wouldn’t have any noise to stop!”
she made her way into the living room to check on the status of her young
houseguests.
She found them in a
huddle on the floor, Marcos and Alma trying to keep a panicky René from crying
out again. They apparently knew the
value of being silent when it was possible they were in a dangerous
situation. Marcos was looking more and
more overwhelmed by the moment, and
had silent tears running down her cheeks.
The sight of their silent and terrified tableau made Tess want to cry
out in agony. No child should need to
have such self-control at such a young age.
No child should be scared out of their wits in their last refuge.
and
had cowered in this same way as the destruction and devastation caused by her
family ran rampant around them? How few
had she helped?
Quickly walking
towards the group she set a still wailing Selena down.
You don’t have to stay quiet. No
one lives in the houses around here.
It’s safe. No one will hear you.\
encourage a child to act like a child?
//This is my fault. I surprised a
patient of mine and he overreacted. But
it’s safe. He won’t hurt you.
Marcos was the
first to respond, letting go of his younger brother.
slowly followed suit. As soon as he was
no longer restrained, René started crying, slow heart wrenching sobs.
person in the room that represented even a modicum of safety in a world gone
mad, and the woman he trusted to control the circumstances around them was only
a knife’s edge away from going mad herself.
But Tess did what she could, holding the boy as
he shook and shivered and cried in fear and grief and loss.
or ill-equipped she felt, she was the one they were looking to for guidance.
But even knowing
that children had an inflated sense of what adults could understand or prevent,
she felt herself making another oath, another promise to add to the bushels she
had already made. I will care for this family.
She wasn’t sure what that entailed, but she knew it didn’t matter.
children live without fear for as long as she could.
Marcos and Alma
soon followed their younger brother’s lead, coming to hang and settling on and
around Tess. She looked at them.
hand resting on her shoulder, the other holding a fussing Selena.
had practically melded herself to Tess’ side, wrapping her small body around
her arm. Tess could feel the warmt
th
the girl’s tears soaking through the sleeve of her cotton t-shirt.
This isn’t the way I would have chosen to earn their trust, but now I
have it. So how do I comfort?
children. She>She knew she could manage as a
pediatrician in a pinch, but that didn’t mean she knew anything about
kids. As a chand and teen, the only
on yon younger than her that she had had any interaction with was her younger
half-sister, and she was sure that didn’t count.
it had come to their interactions. She
had never come running to Tess for comfort, had never asked Tess for advice.
child? Searching through her
memories of a time in her life that she’d rather forget altogether, she
remembered one particularly memorable Christmas.
of the cartel based in the compound where she lived was to attend Christmas
mass. It was then that she had first
been grateful for her learned talent for near instant memorization, when she
had heard the priest singing the Ave
Maria. For years after that, Tess
had thought of that song whenever she got scared or whenever the pain from her
most recent punishment was threatening to overwhelm her discipline. It had been
years since she had let the words escape her lips, but she let them now, hoping
that somehow the timeless song of praise would bring some sort of peace to her
audience.
*********************************************
Sands was alone in
the bedroom once again. He had faintly
heard Tess’ reply and exit over the ringing in his head.
almost killed an innocent child. For
all the people he’d killed without discrimination, he hadn’t yet killed an
innocent child in cold blood. Set things
up so that there was the possibility they would die?
But he hadn’t actually ever pulled the trigger that had sent a bullet
into one. It was perhaps the one
standard that he still had, a slight value for a life
that was still innocent of manipulation and deception.
at the moment I would be glad to revise that.
How that child had managed to hit the one note in the entire human
vocal range that would shatter his mind, he’d never know.
some kind of female intuition. All
he knew was that her first wails had sent a exploding light of white pain
through his nervous system.
For several minutes
he did nothing more than lean against the wall and wait for the incredible pain
in his head to retreat. Slowly and
reluctantly it did, or at least it narrowed its focus to the empty sockets of
his head. Rationally he knew that it was
nothing more than the rush of blood pulsing in the gaping holes, but part of
his mind insisted that it was the permanent darkness there that trapped and amplified
the fading pain, making sure that he didn’t forget what he had lost
yesterday. Yesterday? It couldn’t have been
yesterday. It had to have been years ago
and I’ve been trapped in a pain induced delirium for weeks since then.
never see again.
too much . . . seen too much . . . seen too much . . . .
blood through his head.
Think of something else, Sheldon, anything other than that.
himself to shut out the last sound he had seen.
No, that was the drill.
physician had taken from him and simply kill himself.
Slowly and
painfully he levered himself out of the bed.
The muscles of his legs were incredibly stiff with pain and a lack of
motion. He body was as weak as his mind
he decided as a small gasp escaped his lips and his legs threatened to give out
from underneath him. But his will was
still strong, or perhaps it had simply been taken over by madness.
and pain. No matter.
sanity intact.
a eno enough to trace the woman’s movements.
It was a gut feeling, pure survival instinct that made it possible for
him to do so. An injured animal’s
knowledge that every little sound and sight and smell might mean the difference
between life and death.
something nearby that provided a resting place for the weapon.
heat fall across his face.
There’s the window. Thinking
back to what he had heard from Tess, what direction she had moved in.
set it down.
Carefully, having
to support himself against the walls and hating it, he made his way towards the
window. Carefully he felt along
entire time, he found the barrel of the gun.
Just as he wallinlling his fingers to close in around it so he could
pick it up and put an end to his misery, he heard a faint sound coming from the
living room. It was soft and almost
soothing if he allowed it to be.
Deciding that it was worth postponing his own death to find out
feeble way down the hall.
He was quiet as he
moved, he made sure of that. It was bad
enough he knew that he was having a hard time moving.
awkwardness with which he was making his way down the hall.
singing quietly and with a certain amount of unease increased until he could
understand what she say singing.
Ora
pro nobis peccatoribus/pray for us
sinners
Nunc
et in hora/now
and in the hour
This benediction was the last thing Sands heard before he
collapsed in the hallway from exhaustion.
*********************************************
Tess stopped
singing when she heard the unmistakable sound of a human body dropping
gracelessly to the ground. For a moment
she simply sat where she was with her head bowed and her eyes closed, as if she
were praying, but really doing nothing more than cursing all men alike for
being stubborn and indescribably foolish.
She sat and listened to Marcos’ cries of surprise and alarm at finding
his new special friend up and more severely injured than he had remembered.
//Señora!
//Yes Marcos, I
know.\\ Carefully
she stood up, needing to be able to move freely but unwilling to shake loose
her small companions. As she stood up
and made her way over to Sands with one child hanging on her arm and with
another grasping her leg, she felt a certain measure of surrealism.
I’ll wake up and find this was a dream, find myself back at that window
watching a blind man make his last stand in a deserted street under the hot
//Let me go for a
moment, René,\\ she murmured.
head and tightened his grip around her knee.
I’ve only had enough time to dry a
few tears and already I’m dealing with rebellion within the ranks.
brother at the moment.
Now able to crouch
down at her patient’s side, she checked Sands’ pulse.
small house had clearly been too much of a strain on his depleted stores of
strength and endurance.
Is he trying to kill himself?
for him as long as he was passed ou the the floor.
can’t get him back into bed without breaking open all his wounds because I’m
not strong enough to lift him, even if Marcos helped.
Why do men always have to complicate things?
//Señora?
//I don’t know
Marcos.\\ She looked
at the boy and saw how surprised he was by this confession.
adults had all the answers, but growing up had simply showed her that adults
just stopped asking questions because they were ashamed that they didn’t know
the answers. //I know where you and you,
and René, and Alma can start though. You
can all start by calling me Tessa, and then you can go play, or read, or take a
nap, or draw a picture until I get lunch started.
decide what we’re going to do with Sleeping Beauty here.\
//Who’s Sleeping
Beauty?\\
had decided to enter the conversation.
//Who’s Sleeping
Beauty?\\ Tess
pretended to be shocked and appalled.
//Are you telling me that you don’t know who Sleeping Beauty is
children nodded. //Well, we’ll have to
fix that, won’t we? Come into the
kitchen and I’ll tell you the story while I make lunch.\
*********************************************
The story of
Sleeping Beauty had lasted halfway through lunch and when she had finished that
tale, she had started telling the story of Aladdin and his magical lamp.
all but one of her charges were asleep.
And none of them were in the same room.
Baby Lena was asleep on the kitchen floor in a diluted patch of
sunlight. (Tess had been afraid of
waking the child if she had tried to move her, so she had let Lena be.)
across the armchair. Alma hadsappsappeared some time before; Tess had found her in the spare bedroom, dried
tears on her sleeping face. Sands was
still unconscious in the hallway. Only
Tess and Marcos were still awake, and by all appearances the boy was loosing
the battle to keep his eyes open.
Five minutes later
the boy was asleep and Tess was left alone with her thoughts.
as well do something useful as I wait for ‘Giovanni’ to come around.
need to be reflected over as I keep my hands busy.
on my stitches.
Gathering Sands’
clothes from the window she had left them in, Tess collected needled and thread
as went to sit near her patient to piece together his holey clothing even as
she pieced together her plans for that night.
There was much that needed to be done, and she needed to decided what
order to do it all in.
That afternoon,
after his brother had fallen asleep and his sister had disappeared, Marcos had
told the short story of how he had discovered he death of his parents.
feared. While he had been walking home
the night before, he had stumbled across a police barricade.
city law keepers, he had seen the bodies of his parents.
house under the surveillance of two men in a dark car.
she would have been in any state to notice possible dangers after seeing the
slain bodies of two people she loved.
Anyway, after
seeing the men watching his apartment complex, he had been careful to sneak
into the building by other (and most likely less legal)
means. Reaching his apartment, he had
found his three younger siblings alone and confused.
stay in their home, not knowing if the men outside represented a threat or not,
Marcos had huddled together his brother and sister and had managed to get them
out of the building the same way he had gotten in.
to avoid the few mobs that were still out and clashing with the militia, more
out of mob mentality than any real quarrel, and various sections of the city
that had been seriously damaged by the fighting.
stops, but Marcos had gotten what was left of his family to Tess and safety, a
feat that impressed the woman. She
doubted that she would have tried something at that age.
earliest I tried to run away was at thirteen.
Tess sighed for
what seemed to be the thousandth time that day.
She was so sick and tired of simply living in the moment and not being
able to plan farther ahead than the next few hours.
being able to predict how things were going to happen each day.
small world? That’s not the question I need to be worrying about.
parent’s killed? Was it the rioters,
Marquez’s army, the cartel, or some other element to this tragedy that we know
nothing about? The only way to be sure
is to talk to the police, view autopsy records, talk to any witnesses – none of
which I can do without drawing unwanted attention to myself.
action should be to examine the sight where they were found myself,
and then to try to get a look at whoever was surveilling Marcos’ apartment
building, providing they’re still there.
looked at her watch. It couldn’t have
been more than three minutes since the last time she had sighed.
top that all off, I need to get groceries.
Preferably at a store where no one knows who I am.
another chore to her growing mental list.
And it wouldn’t be the worst idea
to find out where he was staying and pick up some other clothes for him.
in nothing but a pair of boxers.
*********************************************
Either he was
imagining things, or the bed beneath him had gotten a lot harder in the space
of time he had been asleep. And why was
he lying on his face? These were the
questions that plagued Sands’ mind as he woke up from his impromptu swan
dive. It was still a shock to tell his
mind to open his eyes and find that there was nothing there to open, but he was
quickly growing accustomed to the shock.
He was growing practiced at shoving the horror and the panic down to
where they couldn’t reach him. Each time
he shoved harder and deeper, and each time it became easier to ignore the faint
echoes of distress the action caused. He
wanted to scream, to rant, to rave – but all these
things meant that he would be out of control, and control meant
everything. It meant the difference
between the triumph of your enemies and your not so total defeat.
He lay without
moving a muscle, trying to piece together where he was.
criss-crossed with some kind of grid. A
quick twitch of his fingers showed him that he was lying on a tile floor.
I remember last? The image of a
drill came to mind, but he pushed that away.
Pain, a child screaming.
that woman singing some kind of nonsense . . . I went to see what it was . . .
Latin. She was singing in Latin . . .
and then . . . and then . . . .
remember anything beyond that. Disgusted
with what that meant, he decided that he was still in the hallway where he must
have collapsed. So, where’s everyone else?
The house was
almost completely silent. He could hear
rafters expanding in the heat, heard what he thought was the whimpering of
child, but it was coming from another room.
Then off to his side, he heard a nearly inaudible sigh.
asleep. Wait. Wait for more sound.
reciting in a murmur, “Because I could not stop for Death/He kindly stopped for
me;/The carriage held but just ourselves/And
Immortality./We slowly dro–”
be. “Why is it that every time I
wake up you’re prattering on about Death?”
He really was beginning to wonder if he had been shut up with a madwoman
for a keeper.
Perhaps the rest of the cartel was standing behind glass partitions
laughing at him.
“I thought I had
already told you that the subject was something of a hobby for me.
surprise. It was nearly impossible to
tell when this man was awake or asleep.
“Besides, there’s been so much written on the subject for me to read and
remember, and there hasn’t exactly been an abundance of conscious people for me
to talk to recently.” She stood up, her
bare feet making soft slapping sounds against the tiles of the hallway floor.
that I couldn’t manage it without your help.”
He winced as felt
her hands trying to get him to roll over.
He finally did it himself, letting out a muffled groan as he did
so. “Did that hurt a lot or just a little?”
to translate that into some kind of measurement?”
“I’d say that it
was probably safe to give you some painkillers.”
“No. “I could give you Sitting up was more “What do you mean, “I gave you a blood “What kind of “It may surprise “I am but mad ********************************************* Tess’ side was “Oh yeah.” “Oh, sorry.” “No, by all “Marksman or “Well, I wouldn’t “And what do you “Right, another “No . . . .” “ “America may not
enough to take the edge off and leave your mind still mostly aware of what was
going on around you.” As she spoke she
touched his shoul the the feel of her skin against his a reminder that he had
been wandering around in his boxers.
“Com’on, the next step is to sit up, and from there we can hopefully get
you to your feet.”
of a chore than it should have been.
Despite the fact that he couldn’t see, somehow he knew that the darkness
he now lived in got darker as the blood rushed from his head.
that other transfusion.” He heard this
through the fog currently hazing his mind.
I need another transfusion?”
woman said, but so often she managed to lose him with her thought process, as
if he were only getting half of an important telephone conversation.
transfusion last night, after you . . . fell asleep.”
cute. She’s trying to be tactful.
half-assed plan was that? What makes you
think I want some untested, disease carrying, peon blood running through my
body?”
you to know that there are medical protocols followed for the donation of blood
even in Mexico, señor.
that I didn’t drag some disease ridden transient off the street to draw blood
able to guarantee that the blood you got last night was not only chosen because
it wouldn’t interact badly with your blood-type, but because I could personally
guarantee that it was free of any microbes that would make you unduly
sick.” She took his arm in a grip that
was only slightly less gentle than it had been earlier.
as he struggled to his feet. Once again
he found his arm wrapped around a surprisingly strong pair of shoulders.
north-northwest.” This quotemedemed to
quiim fim for a bit, but that could have been the walk back to her bedroom.
aching by the time she managed to get ‘Giovanni’ back into bed.
“You know, I don’t think ‘Giovanni’ suits you all that well.
off, but that’s the problem.” She
sighed, “You’re more than cute. You’re
really more dangerous than cute.”
Suddenly her eyes widened. “Did I
just say that aloud?”
himself it did. It was better than
trying to bring up a nonchalant way of asking if insanity ran in her family.
account for my apparently indescribable bad boy appeal, of course.”
There was no way to get out of it.
Tess really neededlearlearn when to keep her mouth shut.
though he wasn’t paying her any attention, he was.
Yeah, talking out loud is a bad habit when
there’s other people around, Teresa. You
should try to stop doing that, otherwise they may think you’re insane or
something.
“Niña?”
let me off the hook. “Umm, are you sure
you want to hear more of my rather senseless ramblings?
entertaining –”
means. What could be more entertaining
for a blind man than listening to such a revealing voice?”
heard one. “Well, I was thinking
that ‘Tirado’ might suit you better. It
means –”
sharp-shooter. I know.
to call what most of the people around here speak.”
say that most Americans speak English.”
know of Americans, niña?
you were ever so merrily pumping into me?”
It could just be that he’s bored, or trying to find something to keep
his mind off the pain. Would it really
be all that bad to humor him?
closest relatives are . . . were.
“Umm . . . the blood. Right.
to be in the area.”
American just happened to be walking by at just the right time to let you poke
them full of holes and bleed off a pint of blood.”
like you’re about a quart low. There
were times that being a smart ass really came back to bite him in the butt.
being wishy-washy, but she needed to decide and stop
talking like a mindless freak of nature.
“I gave you the blood.”
truth, you sure take a lot of detours getting there.
get it from an American?”
recognize people who have dual citizenship, but Mexico does.
an American. My father is . . .