This is the sixteenth (16th) episode of the love drama, A Stranger At The Door, exclusive to the North Coast Times. In the previous episode (North Coast Times Vol. 19 #37, October 8-14), 2014, Darcia and Rohan were at the hospital in Savanna-la-mar and as he, having received the more serious injuries, was being attended to she was told to register him but Darcia then realized how little she knew of him. On top of it all, a clerk was being rude to her. At the same time, Rohan’s wife, in Kingston, who thought he had gone to a convention in Montego Bay had heard second hand about the accident from someone who had Rohan’s phone and she had been trying, without success, to reach him.
Here is how the episode ended:
Darcia realized she would have a hard time registering Rohan. The first question asked was his name – Rohan Whittaker.
Age and date of birth? She stopped and looked away. She didn’t know Rohan’s age. She though he had said he was 40 but she couldn’t remember. “You can’t remember, Ms Pottinger?” The woman said batting her eyelids. “Okay,” the woman pursed her lips and sighed, then almost shouted “ADDRESS!” Darcia stood up, and looked around the room, with several people behind her. The woman raised her voice, “Does he live with you?”
“No,” Darcia said. She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “No, we don’t live together.” She assessed the woman who said her name was Miss Davis. “Look, Ms Davis, let me finish this later. I am feeling weak,” Darcia said.
Ms Davis giggled, called to an older co-worker and went over and whispered something to her. “Come back after you get dressing, then,” she said to Darcia who was leaning against the glass panel that separated the patients from the workers. Go round dereso to Nurse.”
Darcia felt weak. She believed it was more from the stress than from any physical injury she had. She turned away and felt the phone as a call was coming in. It was from her mother. Darcia held down the button to turn off the phone but not before it made two rings, turning heads toward her. A porter pointed at the sign at the top of the wall, which forbade cell phone use there.
“Turn off the phone,” he commanded. “Or put it on silent.”
Then, Darcia sat on a bench with two other people and put the phone on vibrate. She felt it go off in her hand and again it was from her mother. Darcia didn’t know what she would say to her mother.
Now read on:
BY PRAYER AND DETERMINATION
By Georgiana White
Annabella wanted to surprise him. She knew that if she told Rohan that she was coming down to see him in Savanna-la-mar he would discourage her from the drive or even a ride, especially because of the pregnancy. She figured that going by the South Coast would be best and a call or two to friends suggested she could be there in three hours or so.
Anna told her friend Crystal she was going and Crystal offered to go along as company, but Anna declined the offer. She could do this.
Only the first part of her journey was in daylight. She started to wonder if she had done the right thing when the roads of St Elizabeth began to seem particularly long and lonely and the bright lights from other vehicles started to hit her weary eyes. She had stopped to have a drink as well as to freshen up in Black River, St Elizabeth. Then she found the narrow roads of the eastern part of Westmoreland tiring.
It had been difficult getting through to Rohan until finally a very helpful young man, who introduced himself as Danny said he was in the A&E and he would find her husband. Danny had gone and asked questions, especially of a nurse who seemed to like him. It was she who pointed out Rohan and then Danny called Anna and gave her the news. She called him back and he took the phone to Rohan who was sitting on a chair across from an examination table where the doctors had left him.
SO MANY QUESTIONS
Annabella asked him so many questions, giving him no chance to answer: Was he injured? Was he bleeding? How did the accident happen? Was the vehicle secure? Where was it? How bad was he? Was he going to need surgery? Was anywhere broken? How had he ended up in that hospital, since he was going to Montego Bay? Then she told him about calling his phone and finding that someone seemed to have stolen it.
Rohan told her to relax. The doctors had found no broken bones. They were checking for internal bleeding. He was feeling tired and feeling some pains in the area of his ribs but otherwise he felt okay. He told her he would get a phone the following day. She asked if she should come down. He said no. He repeated that she should not, he would be okay. He pulled back the curtain to see if Darcia was still on the bench out in A&E where she had seemed occupied on her phone.
Rohan wasn’t listening as Anna told him about the difficulties getting through to him and how rude one staff member was to her. He heard her say she loved him. He lied to her that he was being admitted for observation. He would call the following day, he told her.
“But suppose you get worse,” Anna suggested.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “You worry too much. Call you tomorrow.”
It’s immediately after that conversation that Anna decided to go and see him in the hospital. She felt he was trying to put out the best but would need her, and she would help with his vehicle and all that. It was late evening just coming on to 10 p.m. when she reached the hospital gate. The car rolled to a stop, she said a brief prayer leaned back in the driver’s seat and sighed with satisfaction. She was near to her husband.
PLACE OF LOVE
By 10 o’clock Rohan and Darcia had reached the villa he had booked for their weekend.
He was thankful that the policeman who came to the hospital had agreed to allow him to come in the following day, Saturday to give a written statement. The cop had taken his driver’s licence and asked him a few questions. “You understand you could be charged?” the cop asked him. “Yes, sir” he had said bowing and holding his rib cage as if to make the point that he was an injured man. He and Darcia were told they would both have to give statements and Rohan was told his SUV was at the police station.
A taxi operator knew the villa and took them there from the hospital. Standing outside the gate they were not in the mood they had hoped for earlier. Rohan tried to improve the atmosphere: “So here we are at our place of love.”
Darcia said nothing, lifting her bag from the sidewalk.
MAKE THEM COMFORTABLE
As they walked up a small cobblestoned path hemmed in by tall plants and flowers that they couldn’t make out even with the lighting along the fence, Darcia and Rohan saw the large wooden doors to the villa thrown open. As they approached it they could hear soft music and a big woman, about six feet tall and heavy set was standing back from the doorway. She was the housekeeper Rohan had been told to expect and who would try to make them comfortable attending to their wishes.
“Call me Patricia or jus Pat,” she said, welcoming them. She said she was just about to leave for home because she had not heard from them. Her shift would have ended about 8 p.m. she said, but she just felt they were coming so she hadn’t left. Seeing the bandages on Rohan’s forehead and right arm Patricia enquired of him about what had happened. He told her about the accident. She had heard about it too. A woman had died, she said.
Then, she turned her attention to Darcia, “Sorry Mistress. You look aright though. Mi lose mi manners. Jus surprise by the accident. Yuh don’t get no cut though.”
Darcia forced a smile and shook her head, not bothering to mention the wound to her right leg that had been dressed at the hospital.
Patricia insisted they should both have dinner that she had prepared. She started moving to set the table. ‘We are too tired,” Rohan said.
“Oh nothing at all. Is all done. Fish and chicken…And I make a nice salad too,” she protested, carrying on with setting the table. “Is now you need some of Patrica good cooking.”
Rohan said firmly that they weren’t hungry and they negotiated until they settled for sandwiches and tea.
“I will come in to do breakfast in the morning. If you need anything special I will get it. What you want?” Patrica offered. “Especially your wife she may want something special,” she looked at dacia who had taken a seat in one of the sofas with large cushions all around.
Rohan begged Patricia not to fuss about them. “Whatever you have here should be okay — eggs bacon, fruits, some calaloo anything it doesn’t matter, right Darling?” he turned to Darcia.
She was now holding one of the cushions across her stomach and had stretched out with the back of her head against the top of the sofa, her bottom barely balanced against the front of the sofa and her heels resting on one of the large concrete tiles. Darcia was doing some deep breathing exercises.
Patricia said her farewell, dimmed the lights in the living room and was gone.
