A Five-Minute Life

“What?” My throat went dry. “What’s happened. Tell me…”

Even if it kills me…

“She’s hysterical. Terrified. But she’s fallen into an exhausted sleep.”

My hands clenched even as the relief made my eyes fall shut. “I need to see her…”

“Not yet,” Delia said. “Can we talk privately a moment? Roger, Mr. Waters, can you leave us, please?”

“Delia,” I said in a low voice. “She’s suffering.”

She only sat and waited for me to do the same. I moved stiffly to the waiting area and sat in an orange chair across from her.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she said, a tearful whisper. As if it were a secret she was trying to keep from screaming out loud. “She’s suffering and I can’t do this anymore.”

“Delia—”

“I can’t put things back the way they were before the accident. I keep trying and trying. I just want her to be safe.”

“So do I, Delia,” I said. “And I want her to be happy.”

Her face crumpled. “She had so much potential. She was going to be such an amazing artist…”

“She’s still an amazing artist,” I said. “She’s everything she was before. She’s not lost. She’s still here.”

Delia shook her head. “I can’t do it anymore. The endless repetition. The questions. The smile on her face when inside she’s screaming to get out? I can’t stand the thought. It’ll drive me crazy to see her like this.”

“You don’t have to,” I said.

“She’s my sister, of course, I have to.”

“You don’t,” I said. “I’ll come every day. She’s my life. I’m not going to leave her, not ever. You can go, Delia, but only if you let me be with her. Isn’t that why you called me back?”

This is my job interview.

Delia sniffed. “You won’t leave her?”

“Never.”

“You’ll see her every day?”

“Every day.”

Hope flared and died in her eyes. “No. You’ll get bored. You’re a young, handsome man. You’ll need things from her she can’t give so you’ll find them somewhere else.”

“I won’t. I’ll wait for her. However long it takes.”

Delia’s eyes filled again with a hope she didn’t trust. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“Because I love her,” I said.

No stutter. Speaking the purest truth of my heart to the enemy who’d tried to keep me from Thea, I knew I was free of it forever.

“I love her,” I said again. “I will never stop loving her. To the day I die.”

Delia stared at me and it seemed as if a shadow lifted from her. “I believe you,” she whispered. She turned her glance away, her eyes spilling over, shame coloring her cheeks. “I can… I can get your job back…”

“I don’t need it. I made a promise to her about that, too. And I intend to keep it.”