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A Doll's Odyssey
Part Twelve
LXIII. Never said good bye
LXIII. Never said good bye
Sunday, August 29, 1999, between Bad Axe and the Sanilac County line, Michigan
Dolly strummed the guitar with her finger tips and sang a song she made up on the spot, based on Amanda Marshall's "Never Said Good Bye":
I had a friend
He lived down in old Cincinnati
We used to watch the sun
Coming up together
But I got restless then
And left him in the rain
On a dark Kentucky highway
Where it seemed our dreams had shattered.
All of a sudden, I'm headin' home again
With a heart that's filled with sorrow
And a head that's filled with pain
I wish that I was there with you, Baby
'Cause I said a lot of things that hurt
But I never said good bye.
She stopped, interrupted by a cough... a single spasm that escalated into a non-stop fit. Aubrio was so alarmed that he began to downshift, preparatory to bringing the eighteen-wheeler to the side of the road.
"No!" Dolly barked hoarsely, alarmed at the sudden change in the note of the diesel engine. "I'm OK. Don't stop!"
Eyes deep with worry, darting from the road to the small bundle of misery in the right seat, her face veiled by the curtain of her golden-red hair, the trucker obeyed and accelerated back to cruising speed.
Dolly was doubled over, chest against her knees, coughing over and over with a hoarse sound that was painful to listen to. It seemed that she couldn't get any relief, and she only paused the coughing to gasp for breath and break into another fit of hacking and wheezing.
Despite her agony, she had enough presence of mind to hold the guitar in her right hand, preventing its falling and obstructing the gear shift or the pedals, or taking damage to itself.
She was holding her left hand cupped in a tube and held in front of her mouth.
After one of the spells, she felt moisture on it and spread her fingers. Sprayed across her palm there were droplets of blood. Her eyes widened and she rolled them surreptitiously to the left, praying that Aubrio hadn't noticed. He hadn't. She drew too deep a breath and her tortured throat forced her small body in the racking spasms again.
After what seemed like forever coughing, she was able to catch her breath and sit up straight again. She wiped the bloody sputum off her hand on the leg of her jeans. Then she leaned back against the seat, gasping for breath.
"Are you alright, carita?" Aubrio asked. Concern tinged the edges of his words. He handed her a quart plastic bottle of spring water. "Drink that," he commanded.
"Yeah. I'll be OK." Dolly croaked, the coarseness of her voice giving the lie to her words. She drank eagerly from the bottle, letting the heavy flow of liquid soothe her tortured throat. "I guess my wind isn't what it should be. Breathin' the way I did to sing set it off. I don't know what it could be. I'm usually as healthy as a horse. Never even had a sniffle my whole life." No sense mentioning that she was only six months and one week old.
"All that runnin' around you did back there, sleepin' on the beach... It had to have worn down your immune system. So now you've go some kind of a virus and it's really messin' with ya."
"Thank you, doctor Sanchez," she croaked and favored him with a weak grin that nevertheless was strong enough to melt his heart. "I guess that means I have to get home as quick as I can and get to my doctor and my bed. Eh?"
Aubrio nodded. "Sure. Sure." Concern etched his face as he piloted the big freighter down M-53.
"Say," said Dolly, noticing a sign. "I thought we were on M-142?"
"We were. We turned onto M-53 in Bad Axe, when 142 turns north then west, headed for Saginaw Bay."
"So now we're headed...?"
"South. Toward Detroit. We won't go that far. I'll turn west at I-69 and take it over to US 23. Takes us down by Ann Arbor to the west of Detroit proper. Traffic in Detroit is insane and nobody goes through there if they don't have to."
"I see," Dolly said and coughed twice. Aubrio's head whipped around toward her. She managed to stifle the coughing fit after two with a visible struggle to suppress the spasms of her diaphragm. Her body went rigid and trembling with the effort. But he did catch a glimpse of a scarlet stain on her hand and a trickle of red coming from the corner of her mouth.
"Dolly!" he almost shouted with alarm. "That's it! You should be in a hospital!"
"No, Aubrio! Please! I'm beggin' you! They'll kill me!"
"Nonsense, girl! Hospitals help people. They don't kill them! What's gonna kill you is going without treatment!"
"No! I mean the people who're chasing me. And if they don't kill me, they'll haul me off someplace where they'll keep me locked up so they can... Do stuff to me. I have to get back to Columbus where there's a specialist in... my condition. It's the only chance I've got!"
There was a very tense silence in the cab of the truck for almost two miles, then Aubrio nodded. Once. A short up and down jerk of his head. "OK. You're a grown up and you can call your own shots. But don't you go dyin' on me. I don't want to bury your pretty ass. You hear!" There were tears in his eyes when he looked at her to reinforce his demand. He didn't say anything about what she'd said, "... a specialist in... my condition."
"Sure, Aubrio." She smiled at him again. "Whatever you say."
"There's a handle on the right there that'll let you recline that seat if you want to."
"Thanks, man." She pulled on the handle and dropped back to a semi-reclining position, where she fell into a state of half-sleep, lulled by the whine of the tires on the road and the gentle motion of the cab. She could look out the windshield and the side window at the sky, black now with night. She could even see a few stars. Every once in a while, her body would rebel and force her into another cough, small hacks, the body's attempts to clear the airways of fluids, that shredded the tender membranes of her insides and triggered worse spasms in a cascade of agony that she couldn't kick and that wouldn't go away.
Sometime during her daze, she thought she felt a hand on her forehead, a cool hand with a gentle touch. A mother's touch, except she didn't have a mother. She'd had a lover, but she'd never been sick when they were lovers together. He'd been afraid for her safety many times. Had stood vigil at her hospital bedside, had done battle with the health care bureaucracy. The thought of his love for her warmed her and, after a while, she was able to sink into a deeper state of semi-sleep. Not yet complete rest, for she maintained a vague alertness and awareness of what went on around her, but she was able to relax and let her body attempt to heal somewhat.
When Aubrio heard the slight ladylike buzz of her snore, he breathed a sigh of relief. The helpless feeling that had gripped him during her coughing spasms had taken him back to when his little girl had had the whooping cough. He prayed, "Blessed Virgin, watch over this little one. Bless her if you will, and if you must take her, don't let her be hurt. I've only known her a little while, but I can tell she's one of the good ones. Her parents must be proud of her... her strength and courage..." he broke down into tears and just blubbered, fighting to retain enough control to keep the truck on the road.
Dolly heard the prayer, as heartfelt as it was awkward. Though she knew better, she was warmed by his words. If things happen right, she thought, I might just survive tonight and be back in Columbus by morning.
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