Gates of Paradise (Casteel 4)

I couldn't harden myself against him as Mommy had. Perhaps it was all part of some horrible misunderstanding. Perhaps Fate had decided I would end it.

"I know you can't help but be suspicious of me, Annie, but believe me. I am a man with a large fortune who has nothing and will be grateful only for the opportunity to do something noble and worthwhile in the autumn of his life. Surely, you won't deny me that chance," he said softly.

"As long as you promise to tell me it all as soon as you can," I said.

"You have the solemn word of a Tatterton who comes from a long line of distinguished gentleman on whose words many, many people had relied," he promised, his face solid, serious. Then he turned to the orderlies who stood waiting nearby. "She's ready. Good luck, my dear." He patted my hand as they took hold of my stretcher.

They began to wheel me down the corridor. I lifted my head as high as I could to see Tony, who remained behind. I saw the look of love and concern in his face. What a wonderful soft-spoken man he was, and yet he was also a man who had obviously had a stream of power and confidence running beneath his every word. I couldn't wait to learn more about him. My parents had rationed each tidbit as if the small amount of knowledge I was to have of the roan had to last me a lifetime.

Of course, I knew he had built up a unique toy business. "An empire," my father always called it, worth millions of dollars with foreign as well as local markets. "The Tattertons are kings of the toy makers," he told me during one of those rare times when he would talk about it. "Just like our toys, they are toys meant for collectors."

"Tony's toys are toys o

nly for the rich," my mother countered. I knew she was proud that the toys we made in Winnerrow were bought by all sorts of people, not only the very wealthy. "Tatterton Toys are for wealthy people who don't need to grow up and forget their childhood, when they had nothing to find under their Christmas trees and never enjoyed a birthday party. Tony's kind of people," she added, anger bolting through her eyes like lightning.

Now, I wondered how he could be so much different from the kind of people my mother, my father, and I were. Although I sensed his power and authority, I sensed his softness and his vulnerability, too. He cried real tears for my parents and me.

For the rest of the day I set my mind on cooperating with my doctors, who appeared to run me through every test known to medical science. I was probed and prodded. They turned every kind of light on me, X-rayed me every which way, conferred and consulted.

As Dr. Malisoff had predicted, I didn't feel any pain in my legs during the tests. I was able to move my upper body, but my legs were like rag-doll legs, dangling freely when I was lifted to examination tables and placed carefully on beds. At times I felt as if I had stepped into icy water waist deep and it had numbed me from my feet to my hips. My reflexes didn't respond, and I looked down in awe as Dr. Malisoff's assistant and a Dr. Friedman, the neurologist, actually poked me with a pin. I didn't feel it, but seeing it go into my skin made me squirm.

"Annie," Dr. Malisoff told me at one point, "it's almost as if we have given you what is known as a spinal anesthesia to mask pain during an operation. We believe the inflammation caused by the trauma around your spine is responsible for your paralysis right now. There are a few more tests we would like to do to confirm our suspicions."

I tried to be a cooperative patient. My condition made me so dependent upon everyone. I had to be lifted from one place to another, strapped in and rolled about on movable stretchers. It was very hard for me to sit up. Every attempt to do so exhausted me. The doctors kept reassuring me that in time I would be able to do it, but I felt as though half my body had been killed in the accident along with my parents.

Being so helpless was not only frustrating but irritating. We all take so much for granted--walking, sitting, being able to get up and go wherever we like when we like. My injuries seemed like salt upon wounds, for beside the devastating loss of my parents, I now had this physical disability to contend with. How much can one person bear? I screamed to myself. Why was I being put through such a horrible torture? All the things that mattered to me had been snatched away.

Despite the way I felt, I couldn't help being awed by my surroundings and the staff who worked on me. It was an impressive hospital, with corridors twice as wide as the hospital corridors in Winnerrow. There were people rushing about everywhere, everyone looking important and busy. I saw rows of stretchers filled with patients being wheeled up and down corridors and in and out of elevators. Every minute there seemed to be an announcement for or the paging of some doctor. I learned that there were over twenty floors to the building and what seemed to me to be an army of nurses and technicians working there. I thought Aunt Fanny and Luke would get lost trying to find me.

And yet, even in this setting with all these people working on so many different patients, I felt important; I sensed Tony Tatterton's presence and money at work. From the moment I was rolled away from him, I was surrounded by a team of doctors and technicians who remained with me until they finally wheeled me into what would be my private hospital room. Mrs. Broadfield was waiting for me there.

In order to get me into bed, she had to roll the stretcher up beside it and pull me gently, setting my dead legs over the bed first and then moving the rest of me. She said nothing much while she worked; she didn't even grunt.

After she got me comfortably into the bed, she fed me some juice. Then she closed the curtain around the bed so I could sleep, telling me she would be sitting right by the door in case I had need of anything. Exhausted from my examinations, I fell asleep again, and woke when I heard voices around me. I looked up at Dr. Malisoff, who was at my bedside. Tony Tatterton was standing beside him.

"Hello again. How are you doing?" the doctor asked.

"I feel tired."

"Sure. You've got a right to be. Well, we've come to a final decision about you, young lady. My initial theory was correct. The blow to your spine just at the back of your head has inflamed the area, and that's what is causing your paralysis. There has already been a discernable, small amount of improvement, so we are not going to have to operate to release any pressure. Instead, we're putting you on a medicine therapy, and after a while, on physical therapy.

"But you won't have to remain in the hospital all that time," he added, smiling at my look of concern. "Fortunately, Mrs. Broadfield is a nurse with training in physical therapy, and she can manage your recuperation program at Farthinggale Manor. Are there any questions I can answer for you?"

"I will walk again?" I asked hopefully.

"I see no reason why not. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen in due time. And I will be coming out to see you periodically."

"When will I stop feeling dizzy?"

"That comes from the concussion. It will take a little time, too, but you will improve steadily each day."

"Is that all that happened to me?" I asked suspiciously.

"All?" The doctor laughed and Tony stepped closer, smiling warmly. "Sometimes I forget how wonderful it is to be young," the doctor said to him. Tony nodded.

"It is wonderful, and if you can't be young, it's wonderful to have someone as young and beautiful as Annie near you." His smile was small and tight, amused.

"But I'm going to be such a burden," I protested. It was one thing to be a burden to people you loved and people who loved you, but to go of with a stranger and be in this condition made me feel very awkward. How I needed the comfort and affection of Mommy and Daddy now, but Fate had decided that I would never again have it.