On Broken Wings by Francis Porretto Read Free Book Online Page B

and stood a moment, cradling it.
    It's appropriate. She's coming newborn into the world in every way but the strictly biological. She doesn't have to understand it today any more than a baby would. And it doesn't require a priest. Anyone can do it.
    When he returned to the master bath, she was still as he had left her. She was smiling tremulously, but he could tell that her fears were straining her control and would soon repossess her. He stroked her hair once.
    "Chris, I will never hurt you."
    She nodded, but said nothing. He filled the ewer from the tap.
    "Tilt your head back a little further and close your eyes."
    She did as he asked. He cradled the back of her head in his left hand, and with his right began to trickle water from the ewer over her forehead.
    "I baptize thee..."
    A surge of heat passed through him, blurring his vision and bringing him close to a faint. Probably it was just one more side effect of the morning's chemotherapy session. His voice broke, and the words caught in his throat. Tremors raced through his arms and legs, and there was a familiar swimming sensation in his eyes. She sat silent and unmoving, eyes still closed.
    "...Christine Marie D'Alessandro, child of God..."
    His voice broke again and sank to a whisper.
    "...in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."
    A single large tear fell upon Christine's forehead, mingling with the last of the water from the ewer.
     
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Chapter 7
     
    Louis and Christine sat in kitchen chairs about two feet apart. His eyes were locked with hers. His hands moved through the space between them in two independent, widely separated orbits; hers lay in her lap.
    "Left!"
    Her left hand darted from her lap to grab at his right. He squeezed.
    "Very good. Again."
    Her hand returned to her lap, and his resumed their irregular weaving.
    "Right!"
    Her right hand darted for his left and closed on it. Again he squeezed.
    "Again."
    They continued for several minutes. He did his best to keep the patterns of sides and motions random. Always, without moving her eyes from his, she was able to clasp the hand on the side he called in less than a half second. After the twentieth repetition, he heaved a sigh and nodded in satisfaction.
    "You're okay, Chris. There's no doubt about it."
    She frowned. "How can you be so sure?"
    "There are four ways brain damage from toxic drugs can be detected." Louis rose and stretched. Talking to Christine made him feel like a lecturer in front of a class, albeit an unusually small and attentive one. "Loss of concentration, loss of memory, loss of balance, and loss of coordination. What was the first thing we did?"
    "The numbers trick."
    Louis nodded. He had recited skeins of random digits to her, then had started to repeat them and stopped in the middle. She had finished each one without losing a beat, and with perfect accuracy.
    "That tests for concentration and memory simultaneously. You went through fifty sequences, and I didn't catch one single error. I've seen professional memory experts do worse. Next was -- ?"
    "The hopping back and forth on the strip of newspaper."
    He nodded again. "Do you realize that you spent ten straight minutes standing on the toes of one foot? You never even wobbled. Your balance is as good as mine."
    "And this last bit was for what?"
    "Perception and coordination. Your visual field is as wide and accurate as anyone could want, and your eye to hand coordination is perfect. Whatever else they did to you, those creeps did not mess up your brain."
    I'd like to know how they managed not to. Between the physical abuse and the drugs, you have every excuse to be a limp, drooling idiot. But you could play goal for any team in the NHL. Where did those reflexes come from? And all that strength?
    She said nothing.
    "So where do we go from here?" He paced the little kitchen in his habitual, irregular fashion. "You can read and write just fine. You have enough command of arithmetic to be a bookkeeper.