Free Soulshine by J W Rocque

with the administrator of Fletcher University Hospital. They will be sending a driver from an ambulatory service tomorrow to move Evan Troy to their facility. Hopefully their state-of-the-art equipment can help him better than ourscan.”
    “Oh, that"s good. Does Dr. DiLaurioknow?”
“No. That"s one reason why I am telling you. Please let him and Dr. Chan know about what is transpiring. They will both be here this afternoon and will want to check on Mr. Troy and update their report for the university staff.”
    Mary had paused to listen while the administrator and head nurse were talking. She had just left Evan"s room to digest all that he had told her. Michelle was just coming out of the elevator after spending some time in the hospital chapel. “Michelle, did you know that they are moving Evan to another hospital?”
    Michelle didn"t know whether this news offered new hope or was more an indication that no one knew what to do for Evan. “Really?”
“Yes. I overheard that woman talking to the nurse,” said
    Mary as she motioned toward Linda.
“Are… are you okay with Evan now? How did your talk
go? Once you started yelling at him, I went to the chapel to pray.” “How long did you know?”
Michelle guarded her answer until she was certain of what
her mother was referring to. “About what, Mom?”
“He gave me this story about an elixir that keeps both of
you from aging?”
“He told me on my eighteenth birthday.”
“That explains why you disappeared right after your high
school graduation. Michelle, come back home with me. Your
father and I miss you terribly. You don"t belong in Canada. Come
back to Riversidewhere you belong.”
“Mom, you are forgetting that I"m not a kid anymore.” Maryclosed her eyes in anguish. “I wonder why I would
forget that! Maybe because you look like one?”
“I don"t need ridicule, Mom. When Evan told me what he
had done, I had a lot of mixed feelings. I was about to graduate
high school looking like a thirteen year old girl. But then I realized
that if I wanted to be with Evan for hiswhole life, I had to… be
like him.”
“You weren"t even given a choice, darling. He tricked you.
It wasn"t your decision. You"re justifying something that you do
not need to justify.”
“A thirteen year old girl would never have been able to
understand, Mom. Evan did what he needed to do to keep us
together. Don"t you understand love, Mom? Evan has been nicer
to me than… well, nicer than even Dad has been to you.” “Don"t you dare talk about your father.”
“Mom, I love you and Dad. But I know that he would get
angry with you a lot, especially when he drank. But Evan… he has
been a perfect gentleman to me for seventeen years. How many
women can say that? Can you honestly say that Dad has done that,
Mom?”
“Don"t drag him into this. Evan deceived you, baby. He
drugged you… that"s what he did. That’s a perfect gentleman?” “Mom, he took a chance knowing that when he told me, he
might have lost me.”
“No… he knew that you could not get any other man
looking like that.”
“Do you think that Evan would have been the only man to
be attracted to me? Mom, Evan is timeless! He went through two
thousand years looking for his one true love. He met countless
women from many cultures along the way. If he considered me to be the best out of everyone he has known, then how could you
think that no one else could possibly ever be interested inme?” Mary collected her next thoughts. “And you didn"t mind
not being consulted on taking this drug.”
“Stop calling it a drug.”
“That"s what it was! And yes, if he just had to have you, I
suppose at thirteen you would not have understood that you needed
to stop aging at some point, but the perfect gentleman would have
waited until you could have made an intelligent decision… like
maybe after your graduation?”
Michelle felt that she was reliving the day she had asked
herself the same questions. “I had the same thoughts after