Nightmare in Morocco Read Free

terminal, then lingered outside where a damp wind whipped at her hair and clothing . She should have known better . The girl had never liked her . And deep in Noa's heart, although she pretended otherwise, she had never liked or accepted Cathy . Perhaps Mike had ruined her trying to make up for the fact that she was adopted, for the fact that his wife had left them when the girl was only three . Cathy was the source of Mike's many unhappy letters proclaiming the trials of the single parent.
    In spite of exhaustion, of jet lag, Noa still took a cab directly to Memorial South . A nurse at the entrance to the Intensive Care Unit rose at her inquiry . Noa's heart sank at the solemn ess that crept into her voice . "You must be the sister?"
    Noa's heart pounded . "May I see him?"
    The stout nurse came around the desk and took her arm . "My dear..." she said . The deep silence that followed, the lack of words itself, told Noa that her fears had become stark reality . Mike was gone!
    "The heart attack was very severe," the nurse began to explain . She stopped at the sight of Noa's tears . All Noa could think about was that sometime during the endless flight between Algeciras and New York, Mike had died without ever seeing her again.
    Through the veil of grief, Noa suddenly thought of Cathy . "Is Mike's daughter here?"
    "She took a cab home about half an hour ago . Just after Mike passed on." Feeling the numbness of shock, Noa began to move away . She could barely feel the nurse's arm, once again upon her shoulder, gently guiding her to a nearby room . "Wait here," she said . "Mike left something for you."
    Several people waited in the small room . They kept turning pages of magazines as if they did not notice her sobbing . It wasn't fair that she would never see Mike again! It wasn't fair that her brother had died so young! Even separated by an ocean, they had always depended on one another . Mike was the last of her family . Now she had no one left in the world!
    The nurse handed her a folded paper, saying, "He made me promise to give this directly to you and not to the girl . He dictated the words, and I wrote them down for you shortly after he was admitted . It was as if he knew..."
    Noa sat for a while, the unread note in her hands . Only yesterday Noa had left Taber and Morocco, a promise of joy . Now her world had crumbled . How could things change with such cruel rapidity?
    Some time later Noa unfolded the paper and read Mike's words, written in the nurse's dainty, unfamiliar handwriting . "Make me a promise, Noa . I know you never break your word! Promise me you will take Cathy with you back to Spain . She has fallen in with bad company . She is dating the devil himself! You must get her away from his influence! Do this for me, Noa . I love her very much . She has just turned seventeen . I know a year will make a lot of difference . I love you and know I can count on you to watch her for me . Mike.
    Noa, eyes, blurred by her flood of tears and by hours of sleeplessness, read and reread the note . She was only five years older than Cathy . How could she fulfill such a mission? Or from what she knew about Cathy, how could anyone?
    * * *
    Noa gave the taxi driver the address on Oak Terrace and watched the streets grow hilly, narrow, more residential . Rain had begun, thin, mist like, dampening her face and hair . She paid the driver and walked toward the white, impersonal condominium that Mike had shared with Cathy.
    She passed a series of doors that all looked alike until she found one marked Mike Parker . "It's open!" The voice that acknowledged her knock could barely be heard above the clamor of hard rock music .
    Noa opened the door . Cathy sat drinking a bottle of pop . Her head, topped with a careless mass of brown hair, had carried even as a child, a definite set to it . The defiance had extended itself, showed in the slow way she continued with her drinking, in the way her eyes remained locked on Noa over the tilted