Traveling Light Read Online Free PDF Page B

said, calling him Uncle as he’d instructed her all those years ago.
    He smiled. She hadn’t remembered his eyes being so ghostly pale. Wisps of white hair patched his head.
    “Ella,” he called her closer, his voice almost a whisper. “Come closer so I can see you—I want to see you all grown up.”
    She stood and stepped closer, touching the side of the bed.
    His arm shuffled under the blanket as his hand struggled to get free. The nurse had wrapped him as tight as a mummy.
    Paula searched for the end of the blanket.
    “Wait for the nurse,” Heavenly said, reaching across the bed to press the call button.
    Paula frowned. She found the corner of the blanket and began to unravel him.
    “Look how pretty the curls around your face,” he said.
    She freed his arm. His hand reached for hers. It was as light as paper. He let go and reached toward her face. She bent closer and he touched her curls. No one had touched her hair in a million years.
    “Such sad eyes,” he said. “Like when you were little. Remember when you used to play with my Fotis then?”
    An uncomfortable burning sensation ached in her throat. Pain pulsed in her chest and upper back. The muscles beneath her collarbones began to throb. She didn’t know what was happening until her tear ducts stung, until she remembered the feeling of tears as they make their way up from the place inside. Leaning forward, she braced against the side of the bed.
    Heavenly stepped up and touched her between the shoulder blades. “ Miksa, are you okay?”
    Paula couldn’t answer.
    “My Paula.” His voice was definitive. “You’re such a good girl.”
    A few quiet moments passed. The burning in her chest wouldn’t subside; she tried to breathe without sobbing.
    “They took my Fotis,” he said. His face contorted and then broke into a child’s sob, but his eyes were dry. He was out of tears.
    “Ksero, Theo,” she told him she knew.
    “Fotis bit them.”
    “I know.”
    His body wobbled. “He didn’t mean to.”
    Their eyes met.
    “I know.”
    “He’s my Fotis, Paula. You remember. My protector, my palikari. ” His voice became a whisper. “My Fotis never bite anyone.” His hand trembled, fingers fluttering like the wings of a bird. His pale eyes were sunken and shadowed with grief. His legs feverishly rubbed against each other as if trying to ignite the energy to run. He tried to sit up. “They’re gonna kill him, Paula.”
    He wrestled with the swaddled blanket, feet swishing against each shin in a bid to find comfort. “That’s what they do.”
    “He’s getting upset,” Heavenly said, pulling on the back of Paula’s blouse.
    “Voithise ton, Paula,” he said.
    “I’ll help,” she promised. She couldn’t keep a dog, didn’t even want one.
    He tried to rise on one elbow but fell back on the stack of pillows.
    “Look, Paula, he’s getting too upset.” Heavenly tapped her arm again. “Maybe we should go.”
    “Theo.” Paula had to get a name. “Ti eni to onoma sous?” she asked respectfully.
    He seemed confused.
    “To onoma sous?” She pointed to him. “Paula”—she touched her sternum—“to ononma mou,” and then touched his. “To onoma sous?”
    He looked as if he didn’t understand.
    The familiar raspy timbre of his voice had been his name. When she was a girl he’d walked the neighborhood, wearing a long black overcoat, even in summer, a hat, carrying a plastic tote bag lined with a brown paper grocery bag and always accompanied by a dog. He’d smelled like the ocean and the beach after a long day in the sun. For weeks she’d see him every day and then for months not at all.
    Theo’s grasp relaxed. His fingers slowly opened, eyelids twitched, mouth went slack as he drifted off.
    Paula touched Theo’s shoulder through the blanket as he slept. She looked at Celeste.
    “You get a name?” she asked, but Paula said nothing.
    Instead she bent over, rummaging through her purse to get her phone. As she straightened,