Free Lost in Dreams by Roger Bruner Page A

Maybe I’d been wrong to expect her to care deeply about someone she should have gotten to meet, but didn’t.
    On one of Jo’s visits, I was about to ask her to run home and get her Spanish Bible so I could give her a sample of my pronunciation skills.
    But Aleesha got home first. “Hey, girl,” I said. “How was—?”
    “Whoops!” Jo said as if she didn’t care about interrupting me. “I need to go home.”
    What had happened to the old Jo? What besides us growing apart, that was? I could live without any more visits like those, and today’s wasn’t likely to be any better despite her cheery greeting.
    Cheery? Perhaps
stupid
would be a more fitting description of joking about losing a best friend. Then again, maybe she didn’t realize how she’d sounded. Oh, great, here I was making excuses for her again.
    Yet she did sound different this time.
    Jo stood up. “Kim, you look exhausted.” She guided me to the rocking chair she’d just gotten up from. “What did you find out from the doctor today?”
    She sounded deeply concerned. Like the Jo I used to know and love. If she kept this up, I might yet enjoy her friendship again, but I wasn’t going to make any quick and easy assumptions about that happening.
    “Four doctors—”
    “Five,” Aleesha said, keeping an eye on Jo as if watching a mosquito that was hovering too close. “Don’t forget Dr. Holly.”
    “My family doctor, four specialists, and a ton of tests have determined that I’m not dying.”
    “Praise the Lord!” Her sigh of relief was almost as loud as the sound of cars going by. Her mouth curled into a cautious smile.
    “That’s the
good
news,” I said with a weary grin. The visit to Dr. Holly’s office had worn me out. Then I snorted at the thought of that. I
lived
worn out.
    Jo’s eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted in concern. Yes, maybe the old Jo had returned. “The bad …?” she mouthed.
    “The
bad
news is they don’t agree about anything. One thinks I’m depressed and prescribed some potent medication. Another thinks I may have chronic fatigue syndrome, but he won’t be sure for another six months. The third one says it’s not sleep apnea, and the fourth has referred me to a fifth specialist—a Christian psychiatrist.”
    Or was he a psychologist?
    “And what do
you
think it is, Kim?” Hmmm. Not even Aleesha had asked me that.
    Did I dare to admit to my two best friends that I
knew
what it was?
    God was using my guilt to punish me for killing my mother.

chapter fifteen
    A lthough I’d told Aleesha about my guilt feelings months earlier, I hadn’t talked with her about them since. If she suspected that I was not only harboring, but nurturing those negative feelings, she didn’t say anything.
    So I dodged the issue in responding to Jo’s question. “Your guess is as good as mine. I’ll take the antidepressant, and maybe I’ll go see the psychologist, too.”
    “Psychiatrist,” Aleesha said. Why couldn’t I keep those two straight?
    Jo bent over and hugged me. Old times were back. That’s what I wanted to believe, anyhow.
    “Alice, uh, I’m sorry. Aleesha, how are you doing? I didn’t mean to ignore you. I understand you’ve become indispensable around here. Like a member of the family.”
    I couldn’t deny that Jo’s words were amazingly friendly. Accepting. Approving. And highly unprejudiced.
    But I still had a slight suspicion that—regardless of her choice of words—she preferred thinking of Aleesha as a servant and not a family member.
    “Only until Kim is up to taking over. I’ll teach her all of my housekeeping tricks, and then Mr. Scott will be so pleased he won’t even notice it’s not me anymore.”
    “Not unless he looks at the person doing the work,” Jo said.
    Strange comment. I decided to try something. “He still won’t be able to tell. He’s color-blind, you know.”
    Ahhh … Jo wasn’t able to squelch a major frown. Hitting below the belt might not have been fair, but I