At the Scent of Water Read Online Free Page A

coleus and cigarette butts. Rosewood Manor was a state-run extended-care facility. It was a sprawl of brick and concrete, of worn linoleum and scarred paint. It smelled bad, and it was where Kelly Bright had spent the last five years of her life.
    He walked through the automatic doors, past the empty reception desk to the nurse’s station. He recognized the charge nurse as one of the kind ones, fifty or so, overweight, hair and skin drained to the same shade of sallow. Helen, her nametag said. He greeted her and introduced himself.
    “I remember you,” she said, and he tensed, but the eyes she turned on him were compassionate.
    “How are you, Dr. Truelove?” She set her glasses on the mountain of charts before her.
    “Fair to middlin,” he answered, keeping his jaw locked tight against the truth. “How is Kelly?”
    She tipped her head, considering the answer that she was under no obligation to give. “Would you like to see her chart?”
    “No.” The answer was out abruptly. He felt horrified at the thought.
    “She’s doing very poorly,” Helen admitted, her face sober. “She has pneumonia again. And she has another urinary tract infection. Dr. Evers has her on antibiotics, but so far she hasn’t responded. And she’s still got the decubitus on her buttocks and heels, but those are the least of her problems.”
    Sam received the news, heavy, unremitting though it was. All three conditions—pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and bedsores were the bane and result of Kelly’s comatose state. Kelly’s body continued to pump air in and out, receive nourishment, excrete it, and her heart and vessels performed beautifully, the final success of his repair a testimony to the exquisite cruelty of God. But her brain had gone silent and still, deprived of crucial oxygen while he fumbled. It had been in that state of suspended animation for just over five years.
    Sam walked down the scuffed hallway toward her room, his legs feeling heavy as lead. An ancient woman in a wheelchair barred his way.
    “Where is Donald?” she snapped. “Have you seen him? I told him to come straight home, and he’s not back yet.”
    “No, ma’am, I haven’t seen him,” he answered truthfully and detoured around her. He passed a few more residents, nodded in greeting. A few greeted him coherently, and those were the ones he pitied most.
    Kelly’s door was half open. He tapped on it. No one answered. He pushed it all the way open and went in, feeling the familiar dread. The lights were dim, the shades drawn. Marjorie, the charge nurse the last time he’d come, said they tried to keep it light during the day and dark at night, and somehow that disclosure had shocked him. That there might be a part of Kelly’s brain that still knew or remotely cared whether the shades were up or down was a possibility that both tormented him and gave him a wild flash of irrational hope.
    She had a private room. He walked toward her bed. She lay quiet, her eyes closed, and for that he was thankful. It was worse when she mumbled and moved, as if there was someone still inside trying to find her way out, though Sam knew it was an involuntary response, not purposeful in any sense of the word.
    There was a bouquet of balloons on the table in the corner. Happy Birthday , they said. He swallowed, his tongue thick. On the table beside her bed was a birthday card. Happy 16th . He staggered inwardly, feeling as if someone had struck him. Sixteen. She should be buying prom dresses and getting her first job, learning to drive. Not lying in Rosewood Manor day after day, week after week, year after year. But she did, and she would, and there was absolutely nothing Sam could do about any of it. Not now.
    He looked down at her. Her hair was short, not long and thick as it had been the day he had first seen her. Her face was broken out in a few places, and that stabbed him, too, the fact that her body continued to mature even though there was no point in it. Her