Free White Wind Blew by James Markert Page B

the rain. But he hadn’t been holding the door for them.
    She lowered her umbrella when she reached the first step. Her hips moved beneath the tight blue dress and an urge swept over Wolfgang. He resisted. He never expected her to talk to him, but she looked up. They locked eyes.
    “Are you okay?” she asked.
    “Me? Yes…”
    “I followed you up the street.” She clutched his left forearm with her right hand and led him inside. “I saw you slip and fall.”
    “I’m fine, thank you.” Wolfgang wondered if she would have touched his forearm so easily if she’d known that he was a student at Saint Meinrad and that he’d been wearing the Roman and Jesuit cassocks for two years now.
    Once inside, she ran her hand over the front of her dress, flicking off tiny beads of rainwater. She shook water from her hair and smiled at him. Her eyes were blue, her lips full, and her smile framed by dimples.
    “You had a chance earlier to close the door, on the steps back there.”
    Wolfgang blushed.
    “You waited for me, didn’t you?” Another smile. And then she touched his arm again. “I thought it was sweet.” She extended her hand. “I’m Rose.”
    “I’m Wolfgang.” He shook her small hand, his palm memorizing the feel of every bone, ridge, and knuckle in her grip.
    “Do you mind if I sit with you today, Wolfgang?”
    His heart raced. Sweat had already begun to wipe away the residue of her grip on his palm. “Of course.”
    “Of course, you mind?”
    “No, no, I mean—”
    She laughed. “Wolfgang, I’m kidding.”
    He started off toward his seat in the back, and she held on to his arm as if being escorted. Wolfgang looked down to his right foot, aware of his pace and the awkwardness of his steps with another in tow.
    “Don’t be ashamed, Wolfgang,” said Rose. “I like your limp.”
    “Really?”
    “Not everyone has one, you know.” She squeezed his elbow, and the pressure helped to ease his speeding heart. They sat side by side during Mass. Wolfgang sat with his legs straight and his feet flat on the floor. Rose sat with her right leg crossed over her left, exposing part of her thigh. At some point during the Mass she whispered in his ear, “I love the Coronation Window. Don’t you? The colors are beautiful.”
    Wolfgang turned his head toward her, their faces less than a foot apart. She smelled of something exotic and pure. “Yes,” he told her.
    Rose patted the top of his hand, and they both returned their attention to the priest and the altar.
    ***
    In his mind, Wolfgang still talked to Rose, almost nightly. He knew it was silly; in fact, it was just the kind of reaction he saw at times with intensely grief-stricken relatives of his patients. But he desperately clung to the intimate details of her face. He’d had nightmares of not remembering what she’d looked like. He asked her questions. He laughed about their memories.
    Rose never answered back.

Chapter 8
    Swaths of dusty sunlight hit the shiny floor of the Grand Lobby, where a bright red cardinal fluttered around the white columns, frantically searching for a way out of the sanatorium. Wolfgang’s footsteps echoed off the tall ceiling as he hurried toward the north wing, oblivious of the trapped bird, and of Susannah and Dr. Barker standing behind two of the columns with towels in their hands. The front door was propped open. The warm weather had returned for another day. The bird dove and nearly took Wolfgang’s head off, but he ducked just in time.
    He squatted on the ground and spotted Susannah a few feet away.
    “That was close.” She watched the bird as she spoke to him. “You in a hurry?”
    “I’m looking for Lincoln.” Wolfgang ducked again as the cardinal swooped low and then back up toward the ceiling.
    “You’re heading in the right direction.” Susannah made a play for the bird when it stopped on the floor a few feet away. She attempted to cover it with the towel and actually thought she’d been successful, only