Call of the Water (COMPLETE)

53. ARDEA'S HOME

Ardea and her parents smiled at us from the family photo in a silver frame that hung on the wall. The warmth was seeping into the room through the open window, while the breeze was playing with the edge of the curtain.

It did not seem to bother Mathias who sat on an armchair by the window. Across the room, on the sofa upholstered by a gray fabric, sat Opal, Nia and I. Ardea was pacing up and down, frequently casting glances in the direction of the door. My eyes wandered in the same direction quite often as well, and neither Mathias nor Opal were exceptions. Nia hadn't moved her eyes away from the wooden pattern on the door at all.

We were waiting. Two hours had gone by in anticipation.

It was a test of our patience during which my fingernails did not remain intact. I was nervously nibbling on them for about half an hour. Opal occupied her hands by flipping the pebbles she had found in Ardea's garden earlier that day, while Mathias cracked his knuckles every now and then.

More than a hundred and twenty minutes had passed before Ardea's father slowly opened the door and pushed a wheelchair into the room. On the wheelchair sat his latest patient. Her hands as well as her legs had been wrapped in white bandages.

"Professor Cyan!" I exclaimed the second I saw her.

Mathias jumped on his feet, Ardea stopped pacing, Opal dropped her pebbles and Nia stared at the door frame as if she were hypnotized.

Our teacher was smiling.

"Are you okay?" Mathias asked.

"I am," Professor Cyan replied.

"Did it work?" Ardea addressed her father, looking deep into his eyes. Neither of them wore contact lenses which made every look they would cast our way that much more intense.

"I'd say it worked," he answered the question and added, "But the most difficult part still lies ahead of us."

Reconstructing the webbing between the fingers and toes was a child's play in comparison to the operation that would follow once the stitches on her limbs heal. Doctor Kasian thought it would be the wisest to leave the most difficult procedure for the end.

The operation that would follow. The very thought of it was enough to cause shivering of my entire body.

In the days before the final surgery, I tried to find a shelter from the dark thoughts in Ardea's garden which was just as beautiful as our school gardens. My favorite part was the one that welcomed early summer with abundance of fruit. Raspberries and strawberries melted in my mouth when I ate them freshly picked. Ms. Cyan liked the apricots best.

"Won't you miss this?" I asked one afternoon when we lazed in the sun.

Earlier that day, we swam in the swimming pool that was a part of the clinic where Ardea's father worked. The home of the Kasian family was located right across the clinic, so Ms. Cyan had all the medical attention she might need right at the doorstep.

In her hands that were no longer wrapped in bandages, she held an apricot. It only took about ten days for her wounds to heal. Her fingers and toes were once again joined by the webbing, and I was no longer able to match her in the water. I no longer had her speed. The webbing would never again connect my fingers and toes.

She took a bite of the juicy, orange-colored fruit and closed her eyes.

"Who knows," she said, "if I take the seed with me and plant it, maybe it will grow." She looked at me and smiled, letting me know that she was only joking.

"If the procedure works, and you do get back to your home, I promise I will bring you fresh apricots every summer," I said, trying to prevent my vocal cords from shaking.