Gates of Paradise Read online

  I heard the ambulance siren blare away and vaguely realized that it was for me.

  SIX Tony Tatterton

  . I slept through the rest of the journey to the airport, but I awoke as they were transferring me to the air ambulance, and the realization of what was happening struck me like a hard, cold slap to the face. None of this was a dream; it was all true, all really happening. Mommy and Daddy were really dead, gone forever. I was seriously injured, paralyzed, all my dreams and plans, all the wonderful things Mommy and Daddy had hoped for me, obliterated in one fateful, horrible moment on a mountain road.

  Everytime I awoke I relived the terrible memory, saw the rain blinding the car windshield, heard

  Mommy and Daddy arguing about Daddy's behavior at the party, and saw that car coming at us. The visions made me scream inside, and ache so much that I was grateful when I started growing groggy again. Each time sleep came, it brought relief. Only each time I awoke, I had to face the reality and relive the horror once again.

  Mercifully, I fell asleep again until we arrived at the Boston airport for transfer to the Boston hospital ambulance. Whenever I was awake I was impressed with Mrs. Broadfield's tone of authority and the way orderlies and attendants snapped to action when she issued a command. Once I heard her say, "Easy, she's not a sack of potatoes, you know." And I thought, yes, Drake was right. Pm in good hands, professional hands.

  I drifted in and out of a deep sleep and awoke when we arrived at the hospital and I felt someone holding y hand.

  I opened my eyes and looked up at Tony Tatterton. At first he didn't realize I had awakened, and I thought he had such a dreamy, far-off expression on his face, it was as though looking down at me had taken him away somewhere and left him there. When he finally noticed I was staring up at him, his face brightened with a smile.

  "Welcome to Boston. I told you I would be right here when you arrived so I could greet you and be sure you had whatever you needed. Was your trip all right?" he asked with great concern.

  I nodded. Yesterday when I had seen him at my bedside, everything was so unreal that my memory of him was vague. Now I had a chance to really see in the flesh the man I had imagined so many times. His eyebrows were perfectly trimmed and he was closely shaven. His hair was trimmed neatly, too, and the gray looked silky and rich, as it would after being washed and treated by a professional stylist. He was wearing an expensive gray and white pinstriped silk suit with a dark gray tie. All of his clothing looked brand new. When I looked at my hand in his, I saw his long, patrician fingers were well-manicured. The nails shone. Yes, he was far different from the Tony Tatterton described by Drake. His letter and phone call now seemed part of the imaginary world I had sometimes entered and abruptly left for this cold, cruel, real existence.

  Tony let me scrutinize him and rested gentle, affectionate eyes on me as I did so.

  "I slept through most of the journey," I said, my voice barely more than a whisper.

  "Yes, Mrs. Broadfield told me. I'm so glad you're here, Annie. Soon you'll be going through the battery of tests the doctors have planned and we'll get right to the bottom of your problems so we can fix them." He patted my hand and nodded with the confidence and assurance of a man who was used to having things his way.

  "My parents," I said.

  "Yes?"

  "Their funeral . . ."

  "Now Annie, you must not think of that. I told you back in Winnerrow. I'm taking care of everything. You turn your strength and concentration toward getting yourself well," he advised.

  "But I should be there."

  "Well, you can't be there right now, Annie," he said gently. "But as soon as you are able to, I will have another service held at their grave sites and you and I will be there together. I promise. But for now, you're off to the best medical treatment money can buy." Then he turned thoughtful.

  "But don't let my concern for the here and now and your immediate needs make you think I didn't love your mother very much. I was very, very fond of your father, too. As soon as I met him, I knew he was executive material, and I was so happy when he agreed to become part of my business. When your mother and your father lived at Farthy and we all worked together, I had some of the happiest years of my life.

  "The years afterward, when they were gone, were the saddest and hardest years of my life. Whatever I had done to cause a rift between us, I want to undo by helping you, Annie. Please let me do all I can so that I can make it up to them. It's the best thing I can do to honor their memory." His eyes filled with pleading and sorrow.

  "I don't want to stop you, Tony, but there are so many questions I need to have answered. For a long time I tried to get Mommy to talk about her days at Farthy and why she finally left, but she held it back, always promising to tell me everything someday soon. Just recently, right after my eighteenth birthday, she made that promise again. And now . . ." I swallowed hard. "Now she won't be able to."

  "But I will, Annie," he said quickly. "I'll tell you everything you need and want to know. Please trust and believe me." He smiled and sat back. "In fact, it will be something of a relief to me to have you listen and judge."

  I studied his face. Was he sincere? Would he do what he promised or was he just saying these things to get me to like him and trust him?

  "I tried to make amends every way I knew how," he continued. "You received my presents, I hope, and I hope your mother let you keep them."

  "Oh yes, I have them all . . all the beautiful and wonderful dolls."

  "That's good." His eyes brightened; he looked younger. There was something in his face that reminded me of Mommy's . . the way he could telegraph his thoughts and moods with a twinkle in his eyes. "Whenever I traveled, I made sure to find special gift for you. I wanted you to have authentic artifacts, and those dolls were just the thing. I've lost track of how many I sent, but I bet it's quite a collection by now, isn't it?"

  "Yes. They take up an entire wall in my room. Daddy always says I'm going to have to open a store. Everytime he comes in, he . ." I paused, realizing Daddy would never come in and never say those things again.

  "Poor Annie," Tony consoled. "You've suffered a great, great loss. I'll never be able to do enough to ease your pain completely, but believe me, Annie, I'll do whatever is humanly possible. It's my mission in life now," he added with the same look of

  determination I had seen so often in Mommy's eyes.

  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.

  "Not to me. Never to me. Besides, I have servants who are bored because they have so little to do now, and you have Mrs. Broadfield."

  "I'll see you outside," Dr. Malisoff said to him in a voice just above a whisper, a doctor's conference voice, and left my room. Tony remained staring down at me.

  "I'll come twice a day," he promised. "And each time I'll bring you something." He put a light, happy tone into his voice, as if I were still a child who could be cheered up by toys and dolls. "Is there anything special you want?"

  I couldn't think of anything; my mind was still too clouded with the tragic events and the impact of all that was to happen next.

  "It doesn't matter. Let me surprise you each time." He stepped closer so he could lean over to kiss my forehead, and for a moment his hand lingered on my shoulder. "Thank God you're going to be all right, Annie. Thank God you're going to be with me and that I can do something to help you." He kept his face so close to mine, I felt his cheek graze my own. Then he kissed me again and left the room.

  Mrs. Broadfield took my blood pressure and washed me down with a sponge and warm water. Afterward I lay there in a kind of daze with my eyes open, fighting back any tears. Finally I closed my eyes and dozed off.

  Drake came to visit me the next day. I was so happy to see him. I was in a strange place, far from home, but I had family nearby, and family was one thing I always cherished.

  He came to my bed and kissed me, hugging me gently, as if I were made of eggshells and he thought I might crack.

  "You have some color in your cheeks today, Annie. How do you feel?"

  "Very tired. I keep drifting in and out of sleep, in and out of dreams, and whenever I wake up, I have to tell myself where I am and what has happened. My mind won't hold onto the truth. It keeps throwing it out like last week's meat loaf."

  He smiled and nodded and stroked my hair.

  "Where have you been? What have you been doing?" I asked quickly, anxious to see how he had been handling the tragedy and his own sorrow.

  "I decided to stay at school an
d finish the semester."

  "Oh?" Somehow, I thought the whole world had stopped working for a while. Even the sun had refused to appear. Night had a tight grip on the earth. How could anyone work or live or be happy ever again?

  "My teachers wanted to excuse me, but I thought if I didn't keep my mind on something, I would go mad with grief," he told me after he had pulled a chair up to the side of the bed. "I hope you don't think me too hard or indifferent for doing that, but I couldn't just sit around. It was too painful."

  "You did the right thing, Drake. I'm sure it's what Mommy and Daddy would have wanted you to do."

  He smiled, grateful for my understanding, but I believed what I was saying was true. No one handled hardship as well as Mommy could. Daddy always said she had a spine of steel. "CA-steel," he joked. What wouldn't give to hear one of his jokes now. "How wonderful that it's all behind you, Drake. No more studying for a while."

  "But I'm not returning to Winnerrow. It will be too painful for me to return to that big empty house right now, and anyway, Tony Tatterton has made me a wonderful offer for the summer mouths."

  "What sort of offer?" I asked, curious at how quickly Tony Tatterton had taken up the management of our lives,

  "He's going to let me work as a junior executive at his offices, can you imagine? I'm not even out of college yet, but he's going to let me have some responsibility. He's even set me up with an apartment here in Boston. Doesn't that sound exciting and wonderful?"

  "Yes, it does, Drake. I'm happy for you." I looked away. I knew it wasn't fair to Drake, but happiness seemed out of place at this moment. The whole world should be in mourning for me and my parents, I thought. The dark veil that had fallen over everything still clung to me. No matter how blue the sky really was, it would be gray to me.

  "You don't sound too happy. Is it because of the medicine you're taking?"

  "No." We stared at one another for a moment and I saw the sadness creeping back into his face, bringing shadows over his eyes and making his lips quiver. "No," I continued. "I've just been thinking a lot about Tony. I can't help wondering why he has come rushing into our lives and why he's being so wonderful to us. For the longest time, our family treated him as if he didn't exist. You'd think he'd hate us. Don't you wonder, too?"