THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

PART THIRTY-THREE:

ς ρα φωνσας πβη κρατς ργεϊφντης:

 δ' π' δυσσα μεγαλτορα πτνια νμφη

ι', πε δ Ζηνς πκλυεν γγελιων.
 

The tired voice went on.
 

"He's at it again," the night nurse said, standing in the doorway of Marshall's room. "I have no idea what it is, but he's been doing it off and on a good part of the night."
 

Maria was just starting her shift, taking over from Betty who was going home. Quietly, she walked into the small ICU unit where Marshall lay, his head moving on the pillow.
 

τν δ' ρ' π' κτς ερε καθμενον: οδ ποτ' σσε

δακρυφιν τρσοντο, κατεβετο δ γλυκς αν
 

The low voice continued. Maria smiled, checking his IV drip.
 

νστον δυρομν, πε οκτι νδανε νμφη.

Pete and his men had tracked Calvin and Bart out of the forest near the highway the afternoon of the previous day. Within two hours the escapees were surrounded in the back lot of the used car dealer's and apprehended. Mike arrived at the inn the following morning to drive Eden to the hospital, sharing the good news. He took Wadsworth outside for a bit and the dog presumed he was going with them, but today Wadsworth had to stay with Martha and Harold in the inn.

"I feel so bad for him," Eden said as they drove away.

"I'll come back and walk him at lunch," Mike commented. "At least let him get out a bit. I don't think either Harold or Martha could manage him, not the way he is right now wanting to get to Marshall."   He looked sideways at Eden. "How're you holding up?" She still had dark smudges around her eyes.

"I'm ok. I just need for him to be all right, you know. He didn't know I was with him when I was in his room yesterday. I called the hospital this morning and they said he was still about the same."

"You being with him, Eden,...that's got to make a difference.  He'll pull through for you." He glanced at her again as he drove.

Hersholtz decided Marshall needed every bit of anything that might help him, so he was letting Eden stay longer today. She entered his room while Maria was still there, marking something in his chart.

"How is he?" Eden asked.
 

λλ'  τοι νκτας μν αεσκεν κα νγκ

ν σπσσι γλαφυροσι παρ' οκ θλων θελοσ:

Marshall's lips were moving as the odd-sounding syllables flowed out, his head still doing that restless turning back and forth.

"He is by the sea," Maria smiled.

"By the sea?"

"He sits on the same rock every day for seven years, gazing out to sea, weeping for his home and his beloved."

Eden was lost. "Who? What are you talking about?"

"Odysseus," Maria replied, looking fondly at the man in the bed. "Book five of the Odyssey."

"Ulysses? Homer?"

"Yes, he's been quoting it ever since I came on duty."

"Greek? He's speaking Greek?"

Maria nodded.

"And you understand?"

Maria pointed to her name tag: Maria Papadopolous.

Eden came closer to the bed, listening carefully. It was so good to hear his voice, always, but this had some sort of flow and rhythm to it that was very different, and was lovely to her ears, especially when spoken in his deep voice despite the soft level of it at the moment. But he didn't know she was there. She could tell he was unaware of her presence.

"Is...is it all right if I stay?"

"I'm finished for now. Dr. Hersholtz should be by on morning rounds before long. He can answer any questions you have."

Eden stood beside the bed a while, simply looking down at Marshall. Wherever he had gone in his mind, he was by the sea somewhere, yearning for his beloved. Her eyes misted over as he spoke the ancient words and for a moment she covered her face with both hands. Mike, in the hallway, watched her, hating all the anxiety she had been through, was still going through.
Then he grinned slightly, remembering her facing down both Barry and Pete yesterday. She

had guts. He watched her a moment more then left to start his EMT shift.

She finally sat where she had the evening before, taking his hand again. She needed not only to be close, but to hold whatever partof him she could. He was here. He was alive and he was here. Her eyes kept straying to the chest tube. It didn't seem right it should be there, going into him like that. She didn't like that they had cut between his ribs to get it where it was. It was good for
him. That was what mattered. But she didn't like it, still, didn't like that his chest...his...had it there. So out-of-place. An ugly thing protruding there from his beautiful chest.

Hersholtz and Maria  came back and she was asked to step outside for a while, told she'd be called when she could come back. She wandered back to the waiting area. Mike was there by

the coffee machine, having returned to the hospital already from a near-by run where a small boy had gotten his hand caught in a grate.

"How's it going?" he asked, getting her a cup.

"I just wish he knew I was there, Mike."

"They get that fever down, oxygenate his blood some more, he'll come 'round. You'll see. He'll be fine."

She smiled at him. "I don't know what I'd have done the last couple of days without you, Mike. You got me through. Still are."

He smiled back, his graying moustache curving up with his lips. "You're special folks, the both of you," he said softly. "I've gone and got really fond of you. Both of you," he added quickly. None of that, he admonished himself. She's his, heart and soul. Besides, he truly liked Marshall. He'd always thought the man had courage to spare and now here he'd gone and proved it in spades. Still, there were times alone in his bed that he found himself wishing he'd been the one who'd fallen in the gully. Both he and Marshall had met Eden on the same day. He'd just been

a few minutes too late. Even as he ran up the path in the rain toward them, he'd already been
able to see just from the way she was bending over Marshall, sheltering his face with her body, her fingers wiping gently at the mud. Just from that he'd known he was too late.

Mike lived in a small log home he'd built himself, set back from the lake about 3 miles on past the Morning Glory Inn. He lived there alone, his ex-wife having taken their two young daughters and moved to Erie, where she was from. That was 8 years ago now. His girls were getting into their early teens and he didn't get to see them nearly as often as he'd like. He hadn't really known how much he missed being close to a woman, not until he saw Eden there on the path, her chestnut hair dark with rain. Then that evening in the hospital when he'd carried her,
sleeping, down the hallway to the room he'd arranged for her, her cheek warm against his shoulder...something in him he'd tried to keep a lid on all these years...that something began

to yearn again.

He'd been a witness to her falling ever more in love with Marshall. It hadn't taken long at all. And he understood it completely. Marshall was an extraordinary man. At first, he'd been

simply fascinated to learn more about what things were like for Marshall, but he came to feel

a warm friendship for him. And Wadsworth. Marshall himself couldn't see how Wadsworth always had his eyes on him. Mike had always liked dogs, almost always had one...until last summer when Mazie, his yellow lab had died from old age. Watching Wadsworth with Marshall, playing with Wadsworth himself, made him miss Mazie. He'd get himself a new dog soon. Be a lot easier than getting a new woman.

Then Marshall, both blind and sick, had gone and offered himself as hostage in place of Eden. He would have done the same thing, but, then, he was neither blind nor sick. There would be

no comparison between what he'd risk and what Marshall had been willing to risk. That was how much the man loved Eden. You had to respect that. You had to stand back and simply admire something like that. All you could do was help her get him back.

Now he was in there, still fighting for his life.  Mike, always very honest with himself, ran a

quick check on his heart. Yes, thank God, yes. There was not one thing in him that wanted

Eden at the cost of Marshall's life. Marshall had to live. "Any man makes it down Coopers Ridge under the conditions he did, that man's not going to give up, Eden. He'll be back with

you at the inn before you know it."

"I....," Eden began, grateful for Mike's unflagging support, but a young nurse came and told her she could go back to Marshall's room.

Mike watched her hurrying down the corridor then turned to go back to work.

Dr. Hersholtz, making a final entry on Marshall's chart, looked up as she came in, noting all the as-yet-unasked questions in her anxious glance. "Draining's going well," he said,  indicating the chest tube.  I'm  hopeful  we won't  have to do a  decortication."

Seeing her blank look in response, he explained, "Marshall's in second stage empyema thoracis. In third stage restrictive fibrous material forms, encasing the lung.  Then he'd need decortication, which is, basically, going in and cutting and peeling it off the lung. Then the

lung can expand again."

A horrid mental image of a scalpel scraping the outsides of Marshall's lungs filled her brain. Her hand gripped the metal back of a chair.

"But after examining him just now, like I said, I'm hopeful that won't have to be done."

At the white expression on her face, he changed his approach. "The antibiotics seem to be starting to have some effect now, Ms. McLaughlin. Fever's down just a bit, should be dropping more soon. That's an excellent sign. Excellent. It's when the antibiotics don't work that we're
in trouble, you know."

She tried to smile but her lips didn't seem to want to slide over her teeth very well. She was having a hard time shaking free of that image with the scalpel and the lungs. His lungs. "The...tube," she stammered. "How long?"

"Until the pleural cavity stops draining," he said.

She'd begun to hate the sound of all the technical medical terminology that had swirled about her head for a while now. Sitting, she took his quiet hand again, just wanting the warm contact of his skin against hers. Hersholtz left to continue his rounds, Maria adjusted the IV, then left,
too.

His head lay still on the pillow, the Greek syllables no longer forming on his lips. "Where are you now?" she whispered. "Have you left the rock by the sea?" 

Her other hand moved, tracing the outline of his mouth. His head turned, then, just the slightest bit.

"Eden," he murmured almost inaudibly.

"I'm here," she replied, leaning close. "I'm here, my darling."

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