On the third day following the raid on Averell's mansion, Jean alternated between periods of twilight-consciousness (due to painkillers) and periods of near-explosive agitation (when the meds wore off long enough for him to become alert).

Hector recalled the early days of Jean's first hospitalization, when Hector wore protective gear to deliver food to Jean's room, and when inanimate objects often became abstract art splashed across the walls. Jean wasn't that bad this time, but he wasn't happy, and he certainly wasn't peaceful.

At mid-morning, Doctor Goldberg even had a serious talk with Jean about his attitude. Nurse Erskine peeped in the door at one point, to bring in a fresh water carafe, but she backed out, and stayed out, when she realized both men were shedding tears. (This caused serious psychological realignment for a nurse who had been trained to treat doctors—especially those of Goldberg's caliber—as gods.)

Goldberg and Jean had a frank discussion about Mitchell and the relationship Jean had tried to cultivate with her. They agreed that Jean could not force Mitchell to do or to feel something against her will—even if Jean was certain she would be happier doing as he wished. Both men grieved the loss of Jean's hopes, but Jean was forced to accept that he might never see Mitchell Oberon again. And, he might never know exactly why.

Both men were more sanguine when they parted, and Nurse Erskine could find no evidence of weeping on either man's face when Goldberg left the room and she passed him on her way in. She delivered fresh ice water for Jean's bedside table, fluffed his pillows, adjusted his linens, brought him his over-bed table and sketching materials. Like a mother hen, she fussed around until she felt her chick was as safe and comfortable as possible, for the time being. Then, with a comforting smile, she left.

Just before lunchtime, Dan Kavanaugh sneaked five-year-old Debbie into Jean's room for a visit, which lifted Jean's spirits considerably. They delivered get-well wishes from the nuns and students at St. Luke's Daycare, where Debbie attended the after-school program, now that she was in K-5 morning classes in public school.

Jean showed Debbie his colored pencils and sketchpad. He set her to work drawing a picture for him, and while she was thus engaged, he motioned Dan closer to the bed. Dan leaned over, and Jean said very softly, "I need to ask you for a favor."

Mitchell Oberon answered her door at about 2:00 that afternoon, thinking it was the grocery delivery she was expecting. It was, and it wasn't. The person holding a box of groceries was no delivery boy. Indeed, at a different season of the year, Mitchell would have thought Mrs. Claus was delivering a present.

"Oh! Hello," said Mitchell. "Here, let me take that." She lifted the box from the small, round lady's little hands. "I was expecting one of the usual boys..."

"Quite right," the lady said with a smile. "I met him in the parking lot and offered to bring it up, save him a trip, since I was coming anyway."

"Oh. Ahm, thanks. Can I help you with something?"

"You are Doctor Mitchell Oberon, aren't you?" the lady said pleasantly.

"Y-yes...," Mitchell answered warily, uncertain of the visitor's purposes.

"Of course you are," the lady seemed happy in the knowledge. "Someone told me you were beautiful, and I can certainly see what they were talking about."

Mitchell scoffed. "Different Mitchell Oberon, I'm afraid. I am many things, but nobody ever called me 'beautiful.'"

"Oh, they did, dear. You just weren't around to hear it," the lady said, playfully shaking an index finger at Mitchell. "That's sort of what I'd like to speak with you about."

Mitchell studied the supposed North Pole resident standing before her and decided there was no danger. She opened the door wider and stepped back. "Won't you come in?"

The lady nearly took a step but stopped herself. "I'd better tell you who I am first. My name is Mandy Stone."

Mitchell stared at her, saying nothing.

"Do you still want me to come in, dear?"

"Are you alone?"

"Oh, goodness, yes. I won't subject you to any more of Francis in this lifetime, if I can have my way, and I usually can." Mandy's smile was all kindness.

"Sure, sure, come in," said Mitchell. "Would you like some iced tea, diet soda, distilled water?"

"If you're having something, thank you."

"Okay, well, um, come on in the kitchen." Mitchell led the way, carrying the box of groceries. After pouring them both a tall glass of iced tea, Mitchell put away the groceries while chatting with Mandy, who sat at the small kitchen table.

"I'm so sorry about the horrible things that happened to you in the last week — kidnappers, rescuers, guns, violence — you've really been through the mill!" Mandy commiserated.

"Yeah, it was, was pretty awful," Mitchell mumbled.

"I wanted to come see you sooner, but, of course, Duby had surgery yesterday, so I was at the hospital all day."

"Umn, yeah," Mitchell said weakly. "Yeah, I heard it went well. A friend of mine did it, and he's really good, a good surgeon. He says John—Duby should be fine, in time."

Mandy let that thought hang in the kitchen's lemon-scented air while she sipped her tea. "And, what do you think?"

Mitchell nodded with little energy. "I think ... he should be fine ... in time." She placed the last grocery item in the freezer, closed the refrigerator door, and carried the empty brown cardboard box to set it beside her kitchen trashcan.

When Mitchell had retrieved her own tea glass from the counter and joined Mandy at the table, Mandy looked across at her and said, "How much?"

"Pardon?"

"How much time, do you think, before Jean is 'fine' again?"

"Again?"

"I mean, 'fine' as in 'the same as before.'"

"Before the kidnapping and rescuing and all that, you mean?"

Mandy smiled sweetly and put down her glass. She leaned toward Mitchell and said, "I mean, before you."

Mitchell took another drink from her glass. When she had swallowed, she cleared her throat and said, "I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. I thought we were talking about the injuries to Johnny's knee. And, I think, if he takes his therapy seriously and stays away from bad guys, he should recover well enough to lead a ... quiet ... sort of ... life."

"Francis is retiring, you know," Mandy said, as if this should be comforting news.

"I don't know what to say ..."

"No, no, don't worry, dear. You don't have to pretend to sympathize with me. I only said that because you said Duby needs to stay away from bad guys, and I think Francis has been one of the bad guys—at least where you and Duby are concerned—for a while now. I wanted to assure you, my husband won't cause you any more trouble."

"Mrs. Stone—"

"Mandy."

"M-Mandy, ... I only want what's best for Johnny. I have no personal grudge against your husband."

"Well, I do!" Mandy said, then she chuckled. "But, it's not the first time in several decades of marriage, and it probably won't be the last. He'll take his consequences like a big boy and get himself back on track. Don't worry."

Both women took a few moments to breathe and sip their soothing tea.

Then, Mandy told Mitchell Oberon the story of a Canadian teenager who left an abusive home and worked his way south on commercial fishing boats, until a policeman met him on the docks one day and brought him home to the policeman's childless, French-Canadian wife. She spoke of how the policeman became a federal agent and then an anti-terror specialist; of how the boy finished his education and worked for the CIA, eventually transferring to Homeland Security; of how a childless wife became the proud (and often worried) surrogate mother of a strong, talented, young man in a dangerous line of work.

Mandy told Mitchell about Frank Stone's sister, who married money and then learned that most of it had been earned illegally. How the sister's husband had sequestered her from all friends and family, and had kept the sister's only child—a daughter—from having contact with Uncle Frank, or anyone else in Frank's sister's family.

Mandy explained what a different man Frank Stone became as he tried, year after year, to free his sister and his niece from Kyle Averell. But, the law Stone revered seemed to betray him at every turn, preventing Averell from facing justice.

So, when Stone could not succeed through normal legal channels, and federal agencies declined to pursue Kyle Averell aggressively, for lack of evidence, Stone sent someone into Averell's inner circle to get enough information to finally indict and convict Averell.

"He sent Dubreau," Mitchell said.

"Yes." Mandy gripped her tea glass with both hands as if to strangle it. "Frank had told me he had this idea, to send Duby in undercover—without the agency's knowledge—during Duby's sabbatical, when he was supposedly on an extended fishing vacation. But, I knew Averell. More than one agent died or disappeared while working undercover, trying to get Averell. I didn't want my boy sent in there, officially or not officially. So, Francis didn't tell me where Duby really was."

"When did you find out?" Mitchell asked.

Mandy released the death grip on her tea glass and rattled the half-melted ice cubes before taking a sip. "Frank's sister—Averell's wife, Carinne's mother—died suddenly, just over a year ago."

Mitchell gasped. "How?"

"How, indeed?" said Mandy. "Officially, she committed suicide with an overdose of prescription medicine. But, in Frank Stone's mind, of course, she was murdered. Either Averell gave her the drugs, or Averell drove her to the drugs; either way, Frank was crazy for revenge. It was at his sister's funeral that I saw Duby. He was working as Kyle Averell's bodyguard. I confronted Frank, and he admitted to sending Duby in there, with no backup, with no official standing, nothing."

Mitchell exhaled hard. "How long was he working for Averell before ..."

"Before he ended up dead?" Mandy began to cry. "I can't describe to you how I felt on the morning I saw my boy's picture—next to his obituary—in The Herald. It was as if my internal organs were made of papier-mâché and then left out in the rain. I could feel myself dissolving and slowly crumbling away inside."

She sniffed and wiped her nose with a handkerchief from her purse. "And, my loving husband let me believe my boy was dead! What kind of man does that?"

"The same man who invites murderers to an art festival, where innocent people function as bait," Mitchell growled. "The same man who knew Johnny was in danger, but betrayed him, instead of protecting him."

They fell silent then, except for Mandy's sniffles as she got her tears under control.

Mitchell stood, collected both their tea glasses, and went to the fridge to add ice and tea to them. When she brought the fresh tea to the table and took her seat, Mandy was putting away her handkerchief and seemed to have conquered her emotions.

Mandy lifted her glass in a toast. "To the beautiful lady doctor!" she said.

Mitchell laughed and shook her head, but she did clink her glass against Mandy's and take a sip of tea.

"Want to guess who told me you were beautiful?" Mandy asked.

Mitchell shook her head again, smiling. "Well, we do have this orderly at the hospital who sees himself as the reincarnation of Don Juan or Casanova. I think Hector calls every woman beautiful, as long as she's of legal age."

Both women chuckled, then Mandy said, "No, not him. Duby told me about Hector—I guess I should say Jean told me—but, I haven't had conversation with Hector, yet."

"You talked to Jean?" Mitchell said, trying to sound casual, looking down at her hands instead of into Maddy's eyes.

"Yes, but more importantly, dear, have you talked to Jean?" Mandy asked pointedly.

Mitchell looked up and seemed to draw herself together as if admitting to something of which she was ashamed. "I haven't seen him since I saw him and Carinne... I haven't seen him since the night of the rescue raid.... I think I received something from him today, though. It was taped to my door." She pushed her glass aside and left the table, saying as she left the kitchen, "I'll show it to you."

In a moment, Mitchell returned to the kitchen with a rolled sheet of paper. She unfurled it and, using some of the magnets scattered there, posted it on the front of her refrigerator.

"There was no name," Mitchell said. "But, I know his style. This is from Jean."

Mandy admired the drawing of Mitchell-over-midnight-cocoa. "Well, then," she said, "I guess you know who told me you were beautiful."

"This doesn't even look like me," Mitchell said. "The portraits of Carinne, now—all eight hundred of them—those were beautiful, and they all looked exactly like her."

"Carinne! When did he make portraits of Carinne?" asked Mandy. "I hadn't heard about that. Of course, we've established that Francis was not telling me anything, but Du—Jean seemed to be telling me as much as he could recall, and he never mentioned Carinne."

"You've got to be kidding," Mitchell said, sitting down hard in her chair. Her voice took on an edge when she continued: "Ever since I—we brought him home from the hospital, nearly a year ago, he painted almost nothing but Carinne. He couldn't remember her name, but apparently he could remember he was in love with her."

"In love with Carinne? Really? Are you sure?" Mandy asked, looking genuinely perplexed. "My niece, Carinne Averell, right? That's of whom we are speaking?"

"That's whom he was kissing on her bed at Kyle Averell's mansion, the last time I saw him." Mitchell kept her head erect and sipped her tea, but she couldn't hide the tear that slid quietly down her cheek.

Mandy watched her sympathetically. In low tones, Mandy said, "So, that's why you haven't been to see him in the hospital."

"Be kind of awkward, wouldn't it?" Mitchell said, and chuckled bitterly. "Pie-eyed, plain, older lady and luscious, young girlfriend buzzing around the same man. I just couldn't be there and watch her with him. And, he shouldn't have to be worrying about hurting my feelings, when he's the one who's in pain."

Mandy reached across the small table and patted Mitchell's arm. "There's more than one person in pain right now, dear. You've stayed away for nothing, you know. Carinne hasn't been within ten miles of that hospital."

"What! Where is she? Jean almost gets himself killed saving her, and she doesn't even show up? She said she'd ride in the ambulance with him, she told me that the other night! Do you mean they just shipped him off to be delivered to the hospital like a carton of hypodermic needles? Hurt and alone?" Mitchell's voice grew louder and louder until, when she shouted "alone," the kitchen windows rattled.

Mandy smiled beatifically. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Doctor Oberon, but even a smart lady like yourself can make a mistake, draw the wrong conclusion, have a temporary lapse of judgment. Carinne Averell may have gotten stuck in Duby's—Jean's brain when he was injured a year ago, but the man I listened to in that hospital the day before yesterday never mentioned anyone but Michel. Michel, Michel, Michel, constantly. To him, the story of his life—all the life he remembers, anyway—is the story of what Michel has done for him, and with him."

Mitchell got up and tore a paper towel off the rack. She dried her eyes, then ran cold water on the towel and wiped her face. By the time she turned back to face Mandy, she had herself soundly in Stoic Doctor Mode. "I appreciate you sharing your experiences with me, Mandy. And, I believe that you believe what you're telling me. I'm a grownup, however, not a teenybopper with my first high school crush. I can accept what's right before my eyes. He wasn't kissing me. He was kissing Carinne. And, I'm afraid one drawing of me, even if it flatters me, doesn't cancel out nearly a year's worth of paintings of her."

Mandy stood and gathered her purse, put her tea glass in the kitchen sink, and put one arm around Mitchell's waist as they walked to the front door together. "I'm so glad for the chance to finally meet you," said Mandy. "The tea was lovely, and the company even lovelier."

"Thank you," Mitchell said. "I'm really glad you came. I hope we can meet again someday."

Mitchell opened the door, and Mandy stepped outside. "Goodbye, dear," Mandy said. "At least think about what I've said."

"I will, Mandy," Mitchell told her. Then Mandy went on her way, and Mitchell closed her front door. Leaning back against it, she murmured, "I doubt I'll think of anything else."

~o~  ~o~  ~o~  ~o~  

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Will Mandy's visit cause a change in Mitchell's behavior?  Watch for next week's chapter:  Mitchell is about to receive another visitor, a wholly unexpected one, and one who may turn the tide!

Thanks for reading, and thanks for your votes and comments.  Don't forget to tell a friend about the story, if you think they, too, would enjoy it.

Until next time,

Iris