Free A Letter for Annie by Laura Abbot Page B

lifeline. She said nothing on the way to the house. Only when he parked in the driveway did she turn to look at him. Then in a squeaky voice, her eyes wide and beseeching, she spoke, so quietly he had to strain to hear. “I’ve never talked about Pete. Ever. I think maybe—” she lowered her eyes, hesitating “—maybe I could. Just not now. Perhaps one day.”
    He picked up her icy hand and warmed it in his two. “I understand. Whenever you’re ready.”
    Later, after he’d dropped her at the hospital and was driving home, he wondered what sorcerer’s spell she had cast on him. Damn right, he’d wanted for years to talk about Pete and about her callous and ultimately fatal effect on him; but when he was with Annie, those angry thoughts deserted him, and he fell under the enchantment of her fragile beauty and vulnerability. She had gotten to him again. Big-time!
     

    W IDE-AWAKE , Geneva lay listening to the rhythmic clicks and clacks of the equipment dedicated to keeping her alive. In the darkness, brightened only by a low-wattage lamp at the head of her bed, she could barely make out the IV stand and monitor, looming like robotic sentinels of death. Incredulity and rage flooded through her. She couldn’t be dying now. And most certainly not in the impersonal confines of this hospital. That was not her plan.
    Fumbling in the folds of her blanket, she located the remote control and raised the head of the bed a few notches, hoping to relieve the heaviness sitting on her chest like an anvil. Across the room, she noticed a cramped, pretzel-like body curled into a recliner. Annie. She should’ve known the child would insist on staying with her.
    For over a year, she had known her days were numbered. Dying itself wasn’t the problem. Annie was. The niece she adored was imprisoned by a past Geneva had yet to unravel. For that reason alone, she had to hang on. Getting at the truth would be painful for them both, but it had to be done. If that meant forcing down food, enduring respiratory therapy and conning her way out of the hospital, Geneva would do it.
    As a little girl, Annie had been a ray of sunshine, flitting from flower to butterfly to abalone shell in sheer delight. John had doted on his daughter, and Liz loved having a little girl to dress in bows and ruffles. After her father’s untimely death, Annie, with the intuitiveness of the young, had devoted herself to making her mother’s life easier, happier. At a young age, she’d come homefrom school and prepared supper. She’d understood that excelling was a way to coax a smile from her mother. Geneva used to worry about the strain such efforts put on the girl. Dance recitals, cheerleading competitions, tennis matches—it didn’t matter. In Liz’s eyes, Annie had to be a star.
    And what had been her reward? Her shallow mother’s grudging approval, tainted by unrealistic expectations. Yet Annie had never stopped trying and somehow, through it all, never stopped being that ray of sunshine. Until…
    Geneva would go to her grave wishing she had been in Eden Bay for Annie’s high school graduation and regretting she had been unable to alter whatever events had scarred Annie so profoundly.
    She glanced again at her great-niece, still sleeping, her head on her forearm. Soon. She would ask Annie soon. Force some answers from her. While she still could.
     

    A NNIE WOKE to the early-morning bustle of the nurses’ shift change. She straightened up in the chair and stretched her arms above her head, yawning. Then, realizing where she was, she hurried to Geneva’s bedside. Her great-aunt lay with her head elevated, breathing raggedly, her eyes closed. Annie had never been much of a one for prayer, especially to a deity who had failed her before, but in the half-light filtering into the room, she raised her eyes to whatever god might be looking down on them, and whispered, “Please. Not yet.”
    Finally, needing caffeine, she left Geneva. At the courtesy