Fear Nothing Read Free

travel guides, our town is called the Jewel of the Central Coast, partly because the chamber of commerce schemes relentlessly to have this sobriquet widely used.
    The town has earned the name, however, for many reasons, not least of which is our wealth of trees. Majestic oaks with hundred-year crowns. Pines, cedars, phoenix palms. Deep eucalyptus groves. My favorites are the clusters of lacy melaleuca luminaria draped with stoles of ermine blossoms in the spring.
    As a result of our relationship, Sasha had applied protective film to the Explorer windows. Nevertheless, the view was shockingly brighter than that to which I was accustomed.
    I slid my glasses down my nose and peered over the frames.
    The pine needles stitched an elaborate dark embroidery on a wondrous purple-blue, late-afternoon sky bright with mystery, and a reflection of this pattern flickered across the windshield.
    I quickly pushed my glasses back in place, not merely to protect my eyes but because suddenly I was ashamed for taking such delight in this rare daytime journey even as my father lay dying.
    Judiciously speeding, never braking to a full stop at those intersections without traffic, Sasha said, “I’ll go in with you.”
    “That’s not necessary.”
    Sasha’s intense dislike of doctors and nurses and all things medical bordered on a phobia. Most of the time she was convinced that she would live forever; she had great faith in the power of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, positive thinking, and mind-body healing techniques. A visit to any hospital, however, temporarily shook her conviction that she would avoid the fate of all flesh.
    “Really,” she said, “I should be with you. I love your dad.”
    Her outer calm was belied by a quiver in her voice, and I was touched by her willingness to go, just for me, where she most loathed to go.
    I said, “I want to be alone with him, this little time we have.”
    “Truly?”
    “Truly. Listen, I forgot to leave dinner out for Orson. Could you go back to the house and take care of that?”
    “Yeah,” she said, relieved to have a task. “Poor Orson. He and your dad were real buddies.”
    “I swear he knows.”
    “Sure. Animals know things.”
    “Especially Orson.”
    From Ocean Avenue, she turned left onto Pacific View. Mercy Hospital was two blocks away.
    She said, “He’ll be okay.”
    “He doesn’t show it much, but he’s already grieving in his way.”
    “I’ll give him lots of hugs and cuddles.”
    “Dad was his link to the day.”
    “I’ll be his link now,” she promised.
    “He can’t live exclusively in the dark.”
    “He’s got me, and I’m never going anywhere.”
    “Aren’t you?” I asked.
    “He’ll be okay.”
    We weren’t really talking about the dog anymore.
    The hospital is a three-story California Mediterranean structure built in another age when that term did not bring to mind uninspired tract-house architecture and cheap construction. The deeply set windows feature patinaed bronze frames. Ground-floor rooms are shaded by loggias with arches and limestone columns.
    Some of the columns are entwined by the woody vines of ancient bougainvillea that blanket the loggia roofs. This day, even with spring a couple of weeks away, cascades of crimson and radiant purple flowers overhung the eaves.
    For a daring few seconds, I pulled my sunglasses down my nose and marveled at the sun-splashed celebration of color.
    Sasha stopped at a side entrance.
    As I freed myself from the safety harness, she put one hand on my arm and squeezed lightly. “Call my cellular number when you want me to come back.”
    “It’ll be after sunset by the time I leave. I’ll walk.”
    “If that’s what you want.”
    “I do.”
    Again I drew the glasses down my nose, this time to see Sasha Goodall as I had never seen her. In candlelight, her gray eyes are deep but clear—as they are here in the day world, too. Her thick mahogany hair, in candlelight, is as lustrous as wine in