A Step of Faith Read Free Page B

out of the room. I knew she had feelings for me. I just didn’t know what to do with them. Nicole was beautiful and sweet and I knew her almost as intimately as I had ever known anyone. I guess that happens when you walk with someone to the edge of their life.
    It’s an ancient Chinese custom that if you savedsomeone’s life, you were forever responsible for them. I understood that. I suppose, in a way, I felt that way about Nicole. I loved her. But I wasn’t in love with her. That’s not to say I couldn’t be. Maybe I just didn’t know. I hadn’t yet hung a vacancy sign on my heart.
    And then there was Falene. My feelings for Falene were as complex as the changes in my world. Falene was more than beautiful and loyal: she was my one constant—the safe ground in the emotional tsunami in my life.
    My feelings for both women were confusing and, perhaps, moot. I still didn’t know whether or not I was going to live.
    I climbed out of bed and walked to the bathroom. It had been a while since I had looked at myself in the mirror and I looked about as rough as I had expected. My skin was dark with tan and dirt and my jaw was covered with a fresh beard. My hair was long and as tangled as a rat’s nest.
    On a metal shelf above the bathroom sink was a personal hygiene kit with a plastic comb, a disposable razor and a small travel-size can of Barbasol shaving cream. I lathered up my face, then, stroke after stroke, shaved off my beard. I turned on the shower. I hadn’t showered since Hannibal, and the warm water felt marvelous as it washed away several days of grime, coalescing in a steady stream of dirty water on the floor pan. The shower had a retractable seat and I adjusted the shower head, then sat down and bowed my head beneath the stream, letting the water flow over me. Fifteen minutes later I got out and toweled off. I pulled on some fresh underwear and pants, then opened the bathroom door to let the steam out.
    “I’m out here,” my father said.
    He was sitting in the same chair he had occupied the day before, again wearing the same clothes as before.
    “Morning,” I said.
    “Good morning. How are you feeling?”
    “Good,” I said.
    “The nurse said the doctor was going to drop by before we left.”
    “Nicole told me.”
    “I didn’t see Nicole.”
    “She went to get me some breakfast.” I toweled off my hair, then combed it back and came out of the bathroom. I dug through my pack for a clean shirt.
    “Our flight leaves at twelve twenty-seven,” my father said. “We should be at the airport at least an hour early, so we should leave here by ten-thirty. That leaves us fifty-seven minutes to get to the airport.”
    My father was crazily precise about numbers. I had wondered before whether his obsession came from years of accounting or if he was just born that way and it led him to accounting. Cause or effect.
    “How long ago did Nicole leave?” he asked.
    I buttoned up my shirt. “About a half hour. She should be back soon.”
    “She’s a great gal,” my father said. “I’ve enjoyed helping her with her finances.”
    I was getting a pair of socks from my pack when a wave of nausea swept over me. I grabbed the plastic tub they’d given me to vomit in and leaned over the bed.
    “You okay?”
    It was a moment before I answered. “Yeah. Still nauseous.”
    It was a couple minutes before the nausea passed and I set down the tub. “Have you heard from Falene this morning?”
    “She left,” he said.
    I looked up at him. “Left? Where?”
    “She went home. She left last night.”
    I looked at him in disbelief. “Without saying goodbye?”
    “She asked me to say goodbye for her.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    Just then Nicole walked into the room carrying a plastic tray crowded with food. “You’re up,” she said brightly.
    “Mostly,” I said.
    I looked at the tray.
    “I know it’s a lot. But the pancakes and waffles both looked good, so I got you both. I also got you a side of bacon.