While Sean is wearing his cousin’s cheer uniform, his sister has her own issues with clothes. Sean must avoid Fiona at the Café while others make plans for his future. Meanwhile, concerned fathers seek their children out.

“Night Watch?… This is Janet Chang at the third floor duty station,” the supervising nurse said into the inter-office telephone. “We have a young, female patient missing from Room Three Twelve… Morgan O’Donnelly… White, age eighteen… Five foot five, weight one hundred and fifteen… Blue eyes… Long dark hair… Complection very fair with light freckling visible on face and arms…”

At the other end of the call, Night Watch Sergeant Douglas FitzSimmons of St. Bonaventure’s Night Watch jotted down the information as Nurse Chang told it.

“When did she disappear?…”

“She was present for her previous bed check at three thirty-five but missing just now at four fifteen…”

“What was she wearing? Hospital gown?…”

“I don’t know for certain. She left her hospital gown and slippers on the floor. Since the closet in her room was empty, she must be wearing her own clothes now…”

“Any description, especially a coat or a jacket?…”

“No,” replied Nurse Chang. “Sorry, but the nurse who checked her in isn’t on duty now…”

“What else can you tell me about her condition?…”

“She’s on a sedative but still may be somnambulant…”

Oh, great! Sgt. FitzSimmons thought to himself. A teenage girl sleepwalking on drugs! What kind of sedative?

“Chang, what’s she on?…”

She balked just a moment at telling him due to the myriad of privacy laws and hospital regulations, but this was an exceptional case and an emergency at that.

“Zolpidem tartrate…”

“Dammit!” fumed the Night Watch sergeant. No wonder! The girl most likely was sleepwalking. “I’m on it, Chang! Right now!…”

Sgt. FitzSimmons put the telephone handset down in its cradle and picked up the microphone for the hospital radio set. “Hello, Night Watch! Listen up!… We have an eighteen year-old girl likely sleepwalking somewhere in the building or on the grounds. The subject’s name is O’Donnelly, Morgan O’Donnelly. She’s five-five, weighs one-fifteen, has dark hair, blue eyes, and fair complection with a few freckles on her face and arms. And since the subject is female, I’m putting Corporal Martin in charge…”

“Sarge, you wound me!…” a young baritone voice broke in.

“MacGee, if you so much as make unauthorized eye contact with her, I will wound you!…” the sergeant warned him. “Again, Trish is in charge. Everyone else follow general protocol, observe and report only, unless an immediate threat to subject appears. If you see the subject, report to Trish. Is that clear enough to everyone?…”

“Ten-four, Sarge!…” Terry MacGee replied.

“Roger that!…” answered Jim Leveque in his deep, booming bass.

«¡Comprendo, mi señor!…» André Gómez answered, his tenor voice and Hispanic accent clearly penetrating the noise.

“Acknowledged!…” the voice of Trish’s lyric soprano also broke through the night static.

“Corporal Martin, switch to private channel and stand by, please,…” Sgt. McNearny instructed. At once, Trish complied and waited for her sergeant’s voice.

“That you, Trish?…”

“Standing by for your instructions, Doug…”

“They gave her zolpidem…”

Trish exhaled a weary sigh. “Whose bright idea was that, do ya think?…”

“I dunno, but more than likely the girl doesn’t even know she’s strolling down some hospital corridor…”

“How long?…”

“She went missing sometime after three thirty-five…”

“Then either she had only just left the room and hasn’t been seen or took the stairs and already went outside…”

“Hope she’s still on the grounds or it’s a police call,…” Sgt. FitzSimmons was starting to worry. The weather was cold with light rain, and that reminded him of what he didn’t know.

“I didn’t want the other guys to hear this, but this girl left her hospital gown in her room, so she might be naked…”

“You’re right. Better find her before McGee does!” Trish said smiling. “What room was she in?…”

“Three Twelve…”

“That’s the east side of the floor and the north end of the building. Where’s the closest exit to the room?…”

“The closest stairwell is the fire escape at the north end of the building. It exits only outside on the ground floor…”

“I’m already on the way out. Who’s outside this round?…”

“Gómez. The tracking board has him just now passing the northwest corner of St. Luke’s Garden,” Doug told her. “Switch back to common channel, Trish…”

“Acknowledged…”

“You there, Gómez?…” Night Watch Sgt. FitzSimmons asked into his radio.

«¡Sí! Gómez aquí…», answered the Night Watchman.

“Trish thinks the subject’s outside, most likely north of the building. She might be coming toward you…”

Watchman Gómez took a small pair of collapsible binoculars from his right breast pocket, popped them open and began panning across the north parking lot, and then into St. John’s Garden. Seeing the missing girl, he doubled his pace towards her position in yet another garden.

«¡Ay! La veo, mi señor», Gómez reported. «Está una muchacha nuda bailando en el Jardín del San Mateo…»

“Trish, André reports—“

“Yes, I heard—a naked girl dancing in St. Matthew’s Garden,” Trish confirmed. “And I think I can see her now, but my glasses are getting too wet out here…”

“Okay, Trish… André, you still there?…”

«¡Sí!…»

“Then wait where you are until Trish gets there and has control of the situation…”

«Comprendo, mi señor—¡Está bién!…»

“She just laid down on a bench east of Saint Matthew’s Garden, and it looks like she’s curling up to sleep,…” observed Trish.

“Go get her!…” ordered Doug.

Cpl. Martin had been walking fast but half-sprinted the rest of the way, minding that the surfaces, concrete and grass, might be slippery. Still, she covered the intervening distance in a matter of seconds. When she got to the garden, Morgan was lying naked on a bench, curled up on her side, hugging herself, and strangely enough, smiling. But then, Trish saw that the girl was wearing a chain of flowers around her left ankle, another about her right wrist as a bracelet, and a simple floral wreath in her hair. A pile of various early spring flowers were strewn across the grass between the bench and the garden, matching the ones that Miss O’Donnelly had apparently braided into anklet, bracelet, and crown.

Then Cpl. Martin shuddered when she realized that Morgan’s skin was calm and smooth and that she was not shivering. Trish was shivering, though. Naked, cold and wet, Morgan should also be shivering with goosebumps all over. The girl’s smile was incongruous, or worse. Her body temperature was likely dropping. Watchman Gómez had shed his windbreaker already and was about to drape it over the girl’s upper body just as Cpl. Martin arrived. So Trish followed suit, covering Morgan up below the waist as best she could with her own.

“Doug, I’m no expert,” she transmitted to her sergeant. “But from what I’ve learned in my first aid courses, she’s in hypothermia. Have a nurse or someone standing by at the North Entrance with a gurney and blankets—No!—Rush the gurney and blankets out to meet us…”

* * * * * * * * *

The telephone next to the Chief Engineer’s bunk buzzed quietly

“Commander O’Donnelly, sir,” an excited young sailor on the other end of the line addressed him. “You have a personal call from someone in Kabul. Do you know a Major Seamus FitzPatrick in the Marine Corps there?…”

“Aye, yeoman, we’re best friends an’ also related by marriage,” CDR O’Donnelly informed him. “I’ll take the call in here…”

“Aye aye, sir!…” acknowledged the yeoman. The engineer heard the line switch over.

“Malcolm O’Donnelly here…”

“Colm, it’s me—Seamus,…” said a familiar tenor voice on the telephone.

“How are ya, Seamus?…” asked the commander.

“I’m okay, but didja hear about Kelly?…”

“No, but for some reason she’s been on me mind for a couple o’ days…”

“Izzat so?…”

“Aye, ’tis…”

“Me little girl was in an accident goin’ t’ work on ’er bicycle Monday mornin’ an’ is in Sain’ Bonnie’s now…”

“Sain’ Raphael help her! Y’know anything else?…”

“Hit head-on by a car turnin’ the wrong way onto ’er street. She’s been in a coma ever since,” the major recounted. “Kat, Maureen, and all our kids ’ve been sittin’ up with ’er at the hospital…”

“I pray she’ll wake up soon…”

“Aye! Me as well!” Maj FitzPatrick agreed. “Look, I can get a ride t’ the Gulf. One of our pilots has t’ pick up personnel from your carrier. I’ll ride with one o’ your jets t’ Germany an’ on stateside from there.

“You got it, Seamus! CDR O’Donnelly assured him. “I’ll clear things at me end. When can you be here?”

“By sundown, I’m certain, though I’ve not seen a flight schedule yet,” the Marine officer informed him. “I’m not sure how long the flight’ll take.”

“Have your pilot radio ahead and I’ll meet you at touchdown.”

* * * * * * * * *

Fiona moved as if she were a force of nature. She strode directly up the path to Café Tír na n-Óg, swung the door open, although a patron or two might have sworn that she did so without touching it, and marched right up to the counter, her long auburn hair seeming to require an additional moment to flow to a halt around her.

“I’m here to see Sean,” announced Fiona. “Where is he?”

Sandra barely had time to think up anything, but used one of the best known facts about her employee—his riding. “He’s not here right now. He just took off for a round of deliveries,” the manager lied to Fiona. “You might’ve noticed as you came in that his bicycle wasn’t in the rack.”

Fiona heard Sandra’s report with suspicion, but Sean didn’t seem to be there at the moment.

“Can I get you something?” Sandra asked with a cheery smile, rubbing in her mastery of the exchange as she dismissed Fiona’s attempt to interrogate her. Sandra was simply better at the game than Fiona.

“No!” Fiona answered with an overly dramatic flip of her reddish mane as she hastened her way out the door.

“What was that?” Kat wondered aloud, her face displaying a look of comic affright.

“Sína’s bogeyman,” replied her boss. “Bogeywoman, anyway.”

Kat giggled at Sandra’s remark as they and Shelly watched Fiona storm down the sidewalk and turn out of view. Sandra stepped back into the office where Sean was hiding.

“Okay Sína,” she told him. “You can come out now. The überbitch is gone.”

Sean emerged from the office and took his place behind the counter once again. “Thanks, Sandra,” he said. “That was entirely too close.”

“That’s okay,” answered his boss. “We all hafta look out for each other here from time to time.”

“Who is she, anyway?” Shelly asked.

“She’s Fiona, leader of Kelly’s band,” Sean enlightened her. She wants me to fill in for her until she’s well. I’m willing enough to do it, except she also wants me to dress as a girl and go on-stage as Kelly.”

“That should be okay, Sína,” teased Kat giggling. “I have no doubt you can pull it off.”

“Yeah, but you know what her Irish temper’s like,” Sean reminded them all. “Going on stage and pretending to be her is sure to raise her ire. I won’t even think of doing that.” His colleagues all nodded in agreement, each having witnessed Kelly’s wrath on one or more occasions.

Meanwhile, Paolo Cassini opened his binder to look at the portfolio of Kelly’s pictures that David had photographed. Yes, that Kelly was a natural model was no guarantee that her cousin would be. But he couldn’t quite believe Sína’s claim that her photos would turn out poorly. She was just too pretty. If she wasn’t the natural model that her cousin was, Sína could still be taught to model. Most models had to learn those skills anyway. The possibilities of booking apparently identical twin models couldn’t be ignored. Besides, Kelly would surely be able to get Sína modeling.

So Paolo got up from his table and walked back to the bar. “Sína, may I get another croissant, please.”

“Of course, you may,” answered Sean. “Chocolate again?”

“Cream cheese for this one,” Paolo chose. “I like to try a variety of flavors, after all.”

“That’s two seventy-five, Paul. Tax included.”

“By the way, is your family name FitzPatrick like your cousin’s?” Paolo gave Sean a five.

“Oh no!” Sean corrected him. “I’m an O’Donnelly—two ens, two els. Our moms are sisters. That’s where we get our red hair.” Sean handed two and a quarter dollars back to him.

“Please, Sína,” Paolo declined it. “Keep the change.” Sean dutifully dropped the money in the tip jar.

Paolo went back to his table, sat down again, and jotted a few notes down in his agenda binder:

O’Donnelly, Sína; age 19
Barista, Café Tír na n-Óg
Student, college unk.

Notes: Kelly FitzPatrick’s cousin, also works w/D’s sister Shelly; looks like ident. twin to K.
Prospects: Must also sign w/K as team!! PTM

Sean put the cream cheese croissant on a clean plate and took it over to Paolo’s table.

“Thank you, Sína,” said Paolo. “Please keep me informed about Kelly’s condition.”

“I will try to do that,” promised Sean, not suspecting Paolo’s hidden motive. “Could I get you anything else?”

“Not just now, my dear,” declined the talent agent. He hoped that he might eventually get both Kelly and Sína together after the former had recovered from her injuries.

The bell over the door rang and a new group of customers entered, so Sean returned to his position behind the counter. He and his coworkers focused on their customers and soon Sean forgot that he was dressed as Sína.

* * * * * * * * *

“So, he was out on a delivery,” observed Mórag. “Why should that be suspicious? “Coffee shops do cater meetings and smaller events for businesses. I’m beginning to think you’re obsessed with Sean.”

“I’m not obsessed with him!” Fiona denied. “I’m trying to lead this band! And it’s not like I’m getting much help from anyone.” She began to cry a little. Mórag embraced her and Fiona returned it warmly.

“Sisters always?” Fiona asked her, looking deeply into her friend’s eyes.

“Sisters always!” Mórag confirmed. She took Fiona by the hand and pulled her to the sofa. They both sat down. Mórag put an arm around her friend’s shoulder. She’d found Fiona’s recent attitude and behavior so frustrating. Yet she would not—she could not abandon this girl who’d been her best friend since grade school. “Being your best friend—your sister—your Irish sister, I need to let you know that I care about you and the turmoil inside that threatens yet another heartbreak. You’ve hardly recovered from your breakup with Cameron, but you’re already setting yourself up for new failure.”

Fiona had tears in her eyes. “I can’t help it,” she cried, a tightness in her voice audible. “Boys are just so sweet when they dress like girls.”

“I know, Fiona,” Mórag consoled her. “I like boys wearing dresses, too. But you need to understand that most guys don’t wanna do that, and those who do usually feel they gotta hide it. If you keep insisting on that as a criterion for a boyfriend, you’re going to be very lonely.”

“But it was so much fun when we were little.”

“Yes, it was. I remember—and a few boys even had fun dressing up for us.”

“Think any of them might still enjoy doing it?”

“Well, Fiona, y’ never know…”

* * * * * * * * *

Nurse Chang was studying the patient’s electronic chart on a tablet computer at the foot of the bed in Room 312. She used a stylus to update notes on the patient. In normal circumstances, the Charge Nurse would not be monitoring a single patient, but this one had presented a special challenge overnight.

“Mm…!” Morgan began to stir, wiggling and stretching under a stack of warm blankets. “This feels nice! Good morning, Nurse…?”

“Janet Chang,” the nurse told her. “I’m the Charge Nurse for the night shift. I came in to check on you one more time. You had quite a busy night.”

“Why?” pondered the young woman. “Did I sing while I was sleeping?”

“Did you sing?”

“Mm-hmm,” Morgan confirmed that was indeed what she had asked. ”I had this strange dream that I was singing and dancing naked in a flower garden.”

“Uh—Miss O’Donnelly, you were not dreaming.”

“Whaddya mean I wasn’t dreaming?” Morgan wondered in confusion.

The nurse walked over to the nightstand next to Morgan’s bed and picked up the wreath of flowers the girl had worn as a crown. “Was this in your dream?”

“Yes, but how could—? Omigosh!” Morgan gasped, cupping a hand over her mouth.

“You weren’t dreaming,” reiterated the nurse. “You were singing and dancing nude in the flower garden just north of the building. First, you made yourself an anklet, a bracelet, and a crown from flowers, next you began dancing and singing. Then you lay down on a bench in the ice cold drizzle and went back to sleep. You had begun to slip into hypothermia, but our Night Watch found you just in time. We spent some time getting you warmed up again. It could’ve been dangerous if they hadn’t found you when they did.”

“I was, like, really dancing naked outdoors?” Morgan asked, still incredulous of what she’d been told.

“Yes,” the nurse reaffirmed. “In a cold, light rain.”

“But I didn’t know I was doing it,” the girl pled in her defense. “And I couldn’t, like, imagine myself doing anything like that knowingly.”

“Miss O’Donnelly, I’m not here to judge you,” Nurse Chang assured her. “I see naked people every day. I wasn’t so much concerned with the nudity as I was by your exposure to the cold.”

“It’s just I’m—I’m so—so embarrassed I was outside naked.”

“So? You went outside naked. Maybe you have just a little naughty streak in you? You’re certainly not the first girl to dance naked in a spring rain.” Nurse Chang assured her, smiling. “Besides, I have an idea what may have happened. But I’ll let Doctor Chafee explain it.”

Demurely, Morgan returned Nurse Chang’s smile.

* * * * * * * * *

Paolo sat down at his desk and opened his agenda to go over the results of his morning’s activities. Coming to his notes on Sína O’Donnelly, he wondered if David might know her as well as Kelly. So he pressed a button on the interoffice telephone.

“David, could you come in for a moment?…” Paolo asked his intern. Although Mr. Cassini could just as easily have asked his questions by telephone, he always preferred to speak to people directly, face-to-face whenever possible.

“I’ll be right there, sir,…” David answered. Anxious, he paused to take a deep breath, wondering what he might have done to get called before his boss. The young intern got up from his desk and began to tread slowly to Mr. Cassini’s office.

The door was open, so David peeked in. “Mister Cassini, sir, what do you need?” he asked tremulously.

“Please remember just to call me ‘Paul,’” Mr. Cassini reminded him. “We don’t stand on ceremony here, although we may occasionally fall from it.”

David wondered, what could have Mr. Cassini meant by that?

“Anyway, David, have you met Kelly FitzPatrick’s cousin?”

“Yeah, I met him yesterday,” the intern confirmed. “They could be twins.”

“Him?” asked Paolo. “I met a young woman named ‘Sína’ this morning.”

“Well, the cousin I met yesterday was a guy named ‘Sean,’” David recounted. I also called him later in the evening to find out any more news about Kelly.” However, the young photographer decided not to tell his boss about how he’d asked Sean to dress up as Kelly to retake a few pictures. After all, Sean had refused his request.

“So Kelly must have another cousin,” concluded the talent agent. “What I want, now, is to sign them both. Do you have any idea how much we can get for supermodel twins?”

“They’re not twins—they’re cousins.”

“But they look like twins. And in this business how they look is more important than who they are.”

David began to object again, but thought better of it. Besides, that’s what an internship was for—to get some experience in the work world. And if Kelly did sign with Cassini & Sons, he would get credit as the photographer who discovered her. Might he claim credit for finding her cousin as well?

“So then, how can I help?” David asked still unsure where all this was going.

“Café Tír na n-Óg is one of your regular hangouts, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Then make it your preferred hangout. Since this is an assignment, bring your receipts in and I’ll reimburse you for what you spend there. Try to get candid photos of Sína or Kelly whenever they show up.”

“Okay,” agreed David. “I can do that.” Still, he felt as if he were waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Anything else?”

“Not really,” said Paolo. “Just keep me apprised of any developments with Kelly or her cousins.”

The intern just stood there another moment longer.

“You can go now, David,” said Paolo, dismissing him.

“Yes, sir,” the intern acknowledged anxiously. “Thank you, sir.”

“Again, son, just call me ‘Paul,’” insisted David’s boss. “This ain’t the army.”

David left Mr. Cassini’s office to return to his own desk. Meanwhile, Paolo thought about the brief exchange that had just taken place. The kid was hard-working and bright with lots of talent but seemed so stiff, too straight-laced. That was a definite handicap in the industry. David needed to learn how to chill-out or he’d never make it in the fashion world. But still…

* * * * * * * * *

“So, Doctor Chafee, what did happen to me this morning?” Morgan asked the young physician. “How could I do what Nurse Chang said I did?”

He sat down next to his patient’s bed and sighed. “The sleeping pill that I prescribed for you, zolpidem tartrate, has an interesting history,” Dr. Chafee began. “Patients taking it have been observed to engage in various complex behaviors while asleep, unconscious and unaware, and then to awake with no memory of what’s happened. No one really knows why or how.”

“Why did you give it to me, if it could do that?” Morgan asked.

“There’s no way to know how anyone reacts to a drug until actually taking it,” he explained. “Not unless maybe someone in your family had taken it before. And that’s often true of any medication.”

“Then what’s next?”

“The reason I wanted you to stay overnight was to make sure you were fully rested, but I’m not so sure we managed that. Besides, I also need to be certain that you’re okay after the hypothermia as well.”

“But don’t give me that sleeping pill again.”

“Oh no! Not that one!” Dr. Chafee assured her, chuckling. “I’ll have to find something more suitable for you. If that were to happen again, the Director of Hospital Security would so drop-kick my butt out of here.”

Morgan giggled as she realized that she wasn’t the only one who’d been embarrassed by her early morning performance. “Was he upset because I was dancing naked or because he missed the show?”

“You may be onto the truth there,” the doctor answered laughing. “Jim hates to be left out.”

Morgan giggled awhile after that.

* * * * * * * * *

Sean sat alone in a hidden corner of Café Tír na n-Óg, enjoying a cup of his favorite savory lentil soup and a grilled panini sandwich. He drank only a simple lemon spritzer with it. Meanwhile, he thought to catch up with a few of his missed text and voicemail messages.

“… So is Morgan alright, then?…” Sean asked his mother.

“Yes, but her doctor wants her to stay overnight again,” emphasized Maureen O’Donnelly. “He doesn’t think she’s sufficiently rested yet. And apparently, your little sister went on some wild adventure in the wee hours o’ the mornin’ and caught herself quite a chill…”

Sean thought about Sandra bringing him in from the cold drizzle. Had Morgan experienced something similar? That they both faced such strange but similar situations in the early morning today seemed weird.

“Mom, I’ll be certain to look in on her right after I get off work today,” he promised. “I’ll look in on her and Kelly both…”

“That’s fine, Sean. G’bye!…”

“G’bye, Mom!…”

So Morgan was in St. Bonnie’s, too. From what his mother had said, he must’ve just missed her when he left the hospital yesterday. Having both his cousin and now his sister in the hospital was a bit much. And he couldn’t help but wonder about his own sanity. Why did he show up at work dressed like his cousin today? He couldn’t remember dressing or coming to the café. Maybe he needed a night at St. Bonnie’s himself?

Sean took a spoonful of his soup. Maybe he just needed a good night’s sleep. Whatever happened last night could not have been sleep—too crazy! He bit into his panini. As he did, he caught a glimpse of his own well-polished fingernails. Did he do that? Effort and care had been used, like Kelly and Morgan had taught him. But he didn’t remember.

Just then, Sandra came over and sat down on the edge of the low table in front of Sean’s armchair. “How’s Sína doing right now?”

“Sína is quite relaxed,” he said. “Sean, however, is about as confused as ever.”

His boss smiled at him. “Well first, thanks for showing up here this morning. I don’t know why, but I’m glad you did. You saved our butts!” Sandra explained. “And thanks especially for coming in the cheer uniform. You so lightened the mood by doing that, and not just for us—the customers picked up on it, too.”

“I still have no clue why,” he denied. “Showing up early at work for a shift not mine, dressed like a girl, is hardly how I planned today.”

“Too bad,” complained his boss, her eyes twinkling perhaps more than a boss’s eyes should. “I’d so like to see Sína here again.”

Why did girls want him in drag? It really made no sense to Sean. Admittedly, he looked more than convincing as a girl. That had always been true, especially since people confused him with Kelly all the time. But he kept running into girls for whom his girlish looks were a fixation. Fiona was obsessed with him, and Sandra was attracted to him, both seeming to want him as a girl. But Fiona had never seen him en femme. No, none of it made sense!

“I really thought that I’d left dressing up behind,” Sean admitted to her.

“Like your violin?”

Sandra’s remark stung—hard. He’d never talked about his childhood ambition to become a violinist with her. Why did she have to bring it up now?

“Yes, like my violin,” confessed Sean. His gaze fixed upon Sandra’s eyes. “Kelly must’ve told you about it?”

Sandra realized that she’d struck a nerve—a very sensitive nerve—with him. “Yes, she did. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” confirmed Sean, soberly glancing down at his soup. “It’s but a shattered dream now.” He spooned more of the lentil soup into his mouth before continuing with a quote from the Douay-Rheims Bible:

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But, when I became a man, I put away the things of a child.”

“I don’t regard sharing happiness with those around you as childish,” proclaimed Sandra. “You have a true gift in you. And I believe He will hold you accountable for how you use it.”

“But I’ve lost it already.”

“Have you? Have you really lost it already?” Sandra put to him. “I don’t think so. I don’t know much about music, except for what I like to hear. But your music, your gift is sleeping inside you, waiting for you to wake it up again—for you yourself to wake up!”

On the verge of making a proverbial scene, Sandra paused. She’d never reprimanded Sean before now and it wasn’t even about his job. And she was the one who’d broached the off-limits topic. “I’m sorry, Sean,” she apologized to him. “All I had really wanted to say was how much we appreciated you coming in for no good reason and helping out. I know you wanna go change, and Shelly’s offered to take your afternoon shift today. So, you can go home now with our thanks. And please, don’t be upset with me for bringing that up.”

Sean took a moment and let the affair settle in his mind. He mostly got along well with his boss and coworkers at the café. And Sandra’s remarks were well-intended even if unwanted. But more important than what she’d said, was what she did. This morning, she brought him in from the cold and tucked a blanket around him to sleep. She’d kept the teasing sufficiently friendly and low-key that he’d mostly forgotten how he was dressed while dealing with customers.

“Forgiven,” Sean pronounced with a demure grin. “After all, you did pull silly me out of the cold this morning.”

* * * * * * * * *

A weary mind rests, its delta-waves ruling until something signals for its other-than-conscious awareness to enter the theta-state. An apparent fog lifts, revealing a scene from a mindscape…

The four children, brother and sister with their cousins, another brother and sister, are gathered in a dressing room. Three wear beautiful Irish dresses for step-dancing. The fourth, dark-haired and taller than the others, sits in tears, holding a dress of similar design. He fingers the burst seams that once held the beautiful dress securely on his form. Slowly, he compares his girth to the bodice of the dress, noting that his shoulders, chest, and waist had outgrown the precious garment.

His sister with her beautiful mane of fiery red hair sits down beside him and puts an arm around his shoulder and pulls him close to her, letting him cry. Their cousins join them, pulling their seats close enough to hold hands together as a group. They maintain their contact for a few moments until the auburn-haired younger boy wearing an Irish dress goes to get his violin. He returns to this small family circle, as he performs a sad lament for the torn dress.

The sad boy nods to the youngest of them, the violinist’s dark-haired sister, who takes the torn, outworn dress from her cousin and stows it in its garment bag. Perhaps it may be repaired. She seeks another dress for her cousin in a closet, but she cannot find another dress that would fit him. She retrieves an Irish kilt to fit him, with which he must make due.

He is still sad as he dons the kilt, although the violinist plays a bright reel to encourage his cousin’s dampened spirit. The time is come for these children to continue onto their stage, where a world eagerly awaits them to perform…

And a new fog rolls in, dampening the rhythm of theta-waves, and the mindscape recedes into the delta-state of deep sleep…

* * * * * * * * *

“Wake up, Major!” Capt Merrill boldly announced over the whirr of the main rotor as he began his approach to set the helicopter down on the deck of the aircraft carrier. Maj FitzPatrick slowly stirred from his nap, the debriefing report still open at the page he was reading when he dozed off. He had been in the war for too long when he could sleep in spite of the pounding noise of a rotor. Sweat had sprung from his brow, so pulling a handkerchief from a pocket of his dress jacket, the major wiped the moisture from his face.

Capt Merrill was an expert and really didn’t need the signalman on the flight deck to wave him to the helipad; the pilot could do it in his sleep. Rather, the signalman was there to wave him off if things changed suddenly of which a pilot couldn’t be aware. But today there was no such excitement as Capt Merrill set his vehicle down in the target circle. Maj FitzPatrick quickly disembarked from the helicopter and returned the salutes of a Marine lieutenant and two sergeants whom Capt Merrill was taking on as passengers.

Seamus saw Malcolm standing next to another officer, a lieutenant commander, wearing an armband designating him as “OOD,” the Officer of the Deck. “Permission t’ come aboard, sir?” Maj FitzPatrick addressed him with a salute.

“Granted, Major,” the Officer of the Deck said returning the salute with a loud voice. “Welcome aboard!” The OOD then offered a handshake, eagerly accepted by the visiting Marine officer.

“Thank you, Commander,” the Marine officer yelled. The deck of an aircraft carrier can be a noisy place.

“Welcome, Seamus!” Malcolm O’Donnelly greeted his best friend and wife’s brother-in-law with a handshake and a hug. “Good t’ see y’again! I’d like ya t’ meet Lieutenant Commander William Barrett. He’s Officer o’ the Deck, today.”

“So how do you guys know each other?” LCDR Barrett inquired, ushering the other officers toward the warship’s superstructure, which would be quieter inside.

“First we grew up next door to one another in Philadelphia,” explained Maj FitzPatrick.

“Then we married the pair o’ twin sisters who grew up across the street from us,” CDR O’Donnelly continued. “Our kids are all like a single family—hard t’ tell where the line between cousin and sibling is.”

“Me daughter an’ his son are frequently mistaken for each other,” added Maj FitzPatrick, reaching for his wallet. “They look even more like twins than our wives.”

CDR O’Donnelly pulled his own wallet out as he and Maj FitzPatrick began displaying their respective family photographs to LCDR Barrett.

“Officers’ mess is already underway, gentlemen,” announced the OOD as they clambered down the cramped ladder-like stairs. “I’ve already eaten, so if the Captain is there, I’ll introduce you. Otherwise I have to go right back to the bridge.”

“Busy day, Commander?” Seamus asked.

“Not especially, but as Officer of the Deck, I stand in for the Captain,” he explained. “For example, I welcome visitors aboard when the Captain is otherwise engaged.”

“All officers o’ command rank serve in rotation as Officer o’ the Deck, Seamus,” added Colm. “I’m third in rank aboard this floatin’ airstrip.”

* * * * * * * * *

The orderly wheeled Morgan into her cousin’s room where a nurse and Dr. Belknap were working. The neurologist peered at the patient monitor as the nurse had just finished sponge-bathing Kelly.

“How’s Kelly, Doctor Belknap?” Morgan asked. “I didn’t get to see her yesterday after I came in.”

“So are you here as a patient, yourself?” Dr. Belknap replied, surprised to see his own patient’s cousin visiting in a wheelchair.

“Yes. I was so stressed out over Kelly’s accident that I hadn’t slept,” the girl explained. “And my blood pressure was so high that the school nurse sent me to Urgent Care and Doctor Chafee made me stay overnight.”

“Well, to answer your previous question, yesterday was quite exciting,” recounted the neurologist. “Kelly engaged in a complex motor behavior, to the extent possible, while still unconscious. It was a previously choreographed behavior that Nurse Heather here recognized as a cheerleading routine. I’ve read about such cases in journals, but I’d never observed it myself until now. It’s really good news for Kelly.”

“I’m glad she’s getting better,” said Morgan. “Cheering her way back to health sounds just like Kelly. Cheerleading was so important to her.”

“Well, her choreographed routines in memory have given her mind and body something to grab onto,” the doctor explained. “I used to think of cheerleading as silly, but after looking at Kelly’s charts, I couldn’t prescribe a better workout for her brain.”

“She was a cheerleader at Liberty-Patriot High School, wasn’t she?” Heather asked from across the room. “I recognized the cheer and did it with her until I could fasten her restrains. She almost kicked some equipment over.”

“I’m on the varsity cheer squad at Liberty-Patriot myself,” Morgan told her. “But it’s my senior year and we’re done except for baseball season now.”

“Hi there, Sis!” Morgan heard the familiar Irish tenor voice behind her.

She turned around quickly. “Sean!” Morgan rose from the wheelchair to embrace her brother, now dressed in his usual jeans, turtleneck, and flannel shirt. “I’m happy you’re here.”

“I couldn’t believe it when I heard you were in here, too,” Sean cried to his sister, kissing her cheek. “’Twas almost too much!”

“The stress from Kelly’s accident and school and, like, everything, it got to me all at once,” she explained. “Now, I just hope Mom and Aunt Kathleen hold up alright. It’s gotta be tough on them.”

“Relax a little, Sis,” Sean advised her. “That’s why you’re in here right now.”

“I was, like, gonna sit awhile with Kelly,” Morgan told him. “Hold her hand.”

“I’ve been reading to her when I’m here,” Sean explained. “I could swear I saw her smile yesterday.”

“Sean,” Dr. Belknap addressed him. “I should tell you that Kelly’s brainwaves have been unusually active while you’re reading to her, more than I would’ve expected. And sometime after you left yesterday, she began to move according to what I’m told are cheerleading routines, even while she was still unconscious.”

“Doctor Belknap told me about that just before you came in,” confirmed Morgan. “And like, Nurse Heather was a cheerleader at Liberty-Patriot High School herself.”

The nurse finger-waved at Sean. “Doctor, I think it’s time we left our sweet young patient in the kind and caring hands of her kin.”

“I would guess so,” Dr. Belknap agreed.

The nurse positioned Morgan’s wheelchair where she could hold onto Kelly’s free hand easily. Sean took the mythology text from his backpack and sat down next to his sister and his cousin. The nurse and the neurologist left the room right away, as both needed to attend to other patients.

Sean was turning the page to the next story in his book while his sister held Kelly’s hand to her cheek and kissed it. But Morgan had noticed a detail of her brother’s grooming that simply begged for investigation.

“Nice nails, Sean! Do them yourself?”

“What?”

“You did your fingernails in peach,” observed Morgan. “Sína making an appearance?”

Sean looked down at his polished fingernails. He’d forgotten to clean the nail polish off when he changed clothes at his apartment.

“Omigosh! I, like, totally forgot about it!” exclaimed Sean.

“Well, I’m guessing there’s a fun story about why you’re wearing nail polish,” reckoned Morgan. “And you’re not leaving until I hear it.”