Wild Orchids Part 35

As he glanced behind him, the picture began to fade. And so did the sensation. Jackie, Jackie, Jackie, I thought, trying to concentrate. And as my mind went elsewhere, Pat faded from the screen.

"I'm impressed," he said. "But then you writers do have excellent powers of concentration." This time when he smiled at me, I felt warm and good all over. What a nice man, came to my mind.

"I can give it all back to you," he said. "I can put Pat's soul into Jackie's body-or into Dessie's, or into any movie star's body that you want. But she'll be Pat. I can give you all of them, the whole family. You'll have a long life with them, grow old together."

"I..." I began, then tried to draw a breath. "This isn't about me. It's about Jackie and a woman who cared about you." Could the devil be made to feel guilty?

"Ah, but there you're wrong. My visit this time has nothing to do with Jackie. This time in Cole Creek is about you. What do I care whether these people go to the local mall or to one a hundred miles away? Jackie didn't send me an invitation."

I guess I must have looked as blank as my mind felt.

"You act as though you don't remember. Wait, I have it right here."

Reaching into the air, he removed a floating piece of paper and looked at it.

"I want to get this exactly right. I'm so unjustly accused of things that I had nothing to do with that I want to be sure I have it right. Ah, yes. Have you ever lost someone who meant more to you than your own soul?" He put the paper on the table and looked at me. "Is that what you said?"

"Yes," I answered.

Getting up, he walked to the far side of the room. Across from him began a vision of Pat in a sundress. I was pus.h.i.+ng her in a swing. She looked beautiful, but I made myself look away from her. "Nothing to do with Jackie." Is that what he'd said? And it is "about you." Me.

He looked at me. "You drew Jackie to you because you wanted your wife back so very much. You wanted her back enough that you were ready to sell your soul to get her. Do I have that right?"

Yes, he had it right.

"You realized early on that Jackie had a connection to me, and you wanted a way to contact me so you could make a bargain. Your soul told me that you'd do anything to get your wife back. You yearned for all of them so much that you called me to you."

I couldn't say anything. That I was the reason for his appearance made my mind spin.

"I'll tell you what," he said. "I don't usually do this, but I'll make you an even better offer. Instead of putting their souls into new bodies, I'll rewrite history."

At that he looked toward the far wall and I saw Pat's mother's face again, just before she was. .h.i.t by a drunken, high kid and killed. But this time, I saw the kid look up in time to swerve the car and miss her. In the next second, Pat's mother was on the side of the road, scared, but safe.

I couldn't help the tears that came to my eyes. As I watched, I saw other scenes. I saw Pat's mother grow old beside her husband. He didn't die young because he hadn't had the grief that killed him. And he didn't go blind.

In the next second, I saw a little girl on her bicycle and at first I didn't know what the scene was about. But then I remembered. It was Pat as a child, and it was the day she'd fallen on a piece of rebar and had been rendered barren. But as I watched, I saw her young body twist just before she hit the piece of iron.

The next scene was me with a little girl on my lap. Our daughter, and she looked exactly like Pat.

"I can give it all to you," Russell Dunne said.

I could feel tears running down my cheeks, but I didn't have the strength to wipe them away. It wouldn't be just me affected, but them, too. Didn't they deserve a lifetime of happiness? A full lifetime?

"It's yours if you want it," he said. "And, by the way, I'll read the answer from your heart, not from your words. If a person says no to me, but his heart says yes, then I take the yes."

"No," I said, as Pat came back onto the screen. She was older than she'd been when she died, and she was picking up a child who I knew was our grandchild. "No," I said again. I saw myself, older, too, and I was rolling on the gra.s.s with the three most beautiful grandchildren the world had ever produced. I said "no" a third time, but even I could hear what my heart was really saying. Yes. I wanted what I was seeing enough to give up my soul to get it.

As I watched, Pat turned to me, smiling, and said, "I love you, Ford. I want to be with you. Don't let me die again."

And that's when I released her. Pat wouldn't have said that. She didn't blame me for her death. She would never have insinuated that I had let her die. Whoever was in that vision wasn't Pat, not my Pat, not the woman I'd loved so much. I looked back at him. "No," I said softly, but firmly this time.

"No."

When the screen went blank, I wasn't sure if I felt relief or deep emptiness.

"I tried," Russell Dunne said, smiling in that charming way he had. "You can't blame a guy for trying." He nodded toward the ceiling and Jackie's room. "She doesn't love you, you know. No one will ever love you as wholly as your wife did."

"Maybe not," I said, giving him the c.o.c.kiest look I could manage. I was scared to death of him-literally-and I'm sure he knew it, but I didn't want him to see the pain his words caused me. I knew I'd come to love Jackie and I'd come to hope that she cared for me. But if not... I gave a little shrug, meant to say that I'd take what I could get out of life. "I'll tell Pat how much she meant to me when I see her again."

He gave me a little one-sided smile. "Right. In that place. I used to live there. Did you know that?" He didn't wait for my answer. "Maybe I'll try you again later."

"Yeah, you do that," I said.

And in the next second, he was gone.

I don't know how long I sat there in the dark. When he left, so did the suns.h.i.+ne. I sat down on one of the big leather chairs and tried to think about all I'd heard and seen. I wondered how long it would take me to stop shaking inside. Years?

The sun came up, but I didn't notice. In fact, I didn't come alive even when Jackie came into the room, yawning.

"Did you take my jeans off last night?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said, distracted.

To my surprise, Jackie sat down on my lap and began to kiss me. "Why don't you ever do that when I'm awake?"

It took me several moments to come back from the dark place in my mind, but I did it.

I needed Jackie at that moment, needed her warmth, her strength, and her laughter. I kissed her back and before long we were making love on the living room carpet. After an hour or so, we decided we'd better go upstairs in case anyone came home, but we only made it as far as the stairs. I bent Jackie's supple body across the treads and showed her how "old" I was.

It was hours before we finally made it into her bedroom.

Somewhere about noon, we paused for a while, and I ran downstairs to get us some lunch. I was smiling. Actually, I was smirking, because young Jackie was worn out. Ha ha. She had at last discovered what I conserve my energy for.

While I was in the kitchen making us sandwiches and getting myself some of a peach pie n.o.ble had made-and thanking heaven that Jackie had said she never wanted to see sugar again-I picked up a can of black olives and an opener.

As I went back toward the staircase, I saw a piece of paper on the floor.

Setting down the tray, I picked it up. Have you ever lost someone who meant more to you than your own soul? was printed on the paper.

Looking at the note made me shudder. Slowly, I turned the tip of the dragon's tail and burned the paper in the flame that shot from its mouth.

Somehow, destroying that paper with fire seemed appropriate.

It was an hour later, after I'd eaten every olive in the can in a very interesting way, that Jackie told me she loved me. She was a little hurt at my initial reaction because I laughed. And it didn't help that the explanation for my laughter was that she'd just proven that the devil was a liar.

That statement made her look at me as though I was crazy. "Did you think he wasn't?" she asked. "Did you think the devil was a good, kind, honest person?"

" You did," I said, pulling her on top of my naked body. "When you met him, you liked him a lot."

"Naw, I just wanted his camera equipment."

"Yeah?" I said. "It just so happens that I have some camera equipment to share with you."

"Let me guess," she said. "A tripod. Fully extended."

We laughed together.

But then, from the first, Jackie had been able to make me laugh.

end.