by Peggy Webb
“Making an IMAX film,” Anne said.
Emily could see that she would say no more.
“I know that, Mom. What I want to know is why he was there in the first place and what this Jake character has to do with it.”
Hannah wasn’t fooled, and she’d never be satisfied with less than the whole truth.
“His name is Jake Bean,” Emily said, “and I don’t want you ever to refer to him again in that derogatory fashion.”
“Emily, Hannah, if you’re going to argue, go home. I don’t want to hear it and I don’t want Michael to hear it.”
The door burst open.
“Which one of these rowdy women do you want me to straighten out first, Mom?”
“Daniel!”
He swept them all up in his hugs and his perpetual good humor.
“I didn’t think you were coming until tomorrow,” Anne said.
“I caught an earlier flight.” His smile was infectious. “And just in the nick of time, it seems.”
Chapter Nineteen
It was dark when the three Westmoreland siblings got back to Belle Rose, and Gwendolyn was the first to greet them. She clambered off the front-porch swing and sashayed down the steps.
“Good grief,” Hannah said. “What is that skunk doing here?”
“Her name is Gwendolyn, and she’s happier here than in the woods.” Emily bent to stroke Gwendolyn’s soft fur.
“I might have known.” Hannah said.
“I couldn’t very well leave her in the woods crying while I went to Hong Kong, now could I?”
“Don’t tell me you carried her to Hong Kong with you!”
“No. But I did consider it.”
Hannah and Daniel burst out laughing, and he said, “Life with the Westmorelands.”
“It’s a sitcom,” Hannah said. Sobering, she added, “Sometimes.”
“Everything’s going to be all right.” Daniel draped an arm around each sister and hugged them close.
“I said that, too, but I don’t really believe it.”
“That’s the difference between you and me, Hannah. I do.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got a hotline to a higher authority, little brother.”
“So do you, Hannah. All you have to do is pick up the phone.”
“Pass the collection plate, Emily, while I render a song.” Hannah began singing “Bringing in the Sheaves,” and the three of them went into the house together, laughing.
The laughter was still with them at the dinner table, and Jake found himself watching it with a sort of envy. He’d never had brothers and sisters. Didn’t know what it was like to share private jokes, to go into gales of laughter over something other folks wouldn’t even find amusing, to tease and fight and argue and know that in the end it would all work out fine because this was family.
He could be part of this family. That was what he wanted. To sit beside Emily at the Westmorelands’ dinner table and be included in all the inside stories. To smile at her across the table over a glass of wine and know that within an hour the two of them would walk up the stairs and share a bed in Belle Rose because that was where they belonged. Together.
Suddenly Hannah focused all her attention on him.
“So tell me, Jake. What was my father doing out in that avalanche while the rest of you were sleeping?”
The laughter stilled, and Emily tensed as if she were caught in the crosshairs of a rifle. Jake would have reached for her hand, but she was on the other side of the table. He gave her a reassuring smile, then turned to face the inquisition he’d known was coming from the moment he’d met Hannah at the airport.
He was glad it had come at the dinner table, glad she had chosen to quiz him, instead of Emily. At least he could spare Emily that.
“Michael and I had been in the habit of getting up before the rest of the crew. We liked to watch the sunrise.”
“So why weren’t you out there?”
“Hannah…” Emily said.
“It’s okay, Emily. I’d want to know if I were in her shoes.”
At the head of the table Daniel was sitting quietly, watching and waiting. It was a benevolent sort of silence, and Jake found himself liking Emily’s brother more by the minute. She had told him Daniel was one of the youngest men ever to become senior pastor at a big-city church, and Jake could see why.
“We’d finished the climb, Hannah, and I was exhausted. I didn’t even know Michael was out there until the avalanche woke me up.”
“Wasn’t there something you could do?”
“Nothing. By the time I called out to him, it was already too late.”
The daughter of a seasoned climber, Hannah understood the nature of the avalanche without further questions. Jake leaned back in his chair, thinking it was all over.
Then Hannah proved him wrong.
“He was on that mountain because of you, wasn’t he?”
“Hannah. Don’t.” Daniel’s rebuke was mild, but Emily turned pale.
“Stop this right now.” Emily shoved back from the table and stood with her fists balled on the white tablecloth. “If you want to place blame, place it on me. I’m the one who told Jake it was all right to ask Dad to go.”
“But would he have gone if it had been anybody besides Jake who asked him?” Hannah threw her napkin onto the table and stood to face her sister. “It seems you’ve rescued more than one skunk, Emily.”
“Enough.” Daniel towered over his sisters, and it wasn’t anger that commanded their attention but the powerful beneficence that radiated from him. “We will not assign blame in this house, and we will not let this tragedy divide us. We’ve always stood together as a family, and we will stand together in this.”
“You’re right, Daniel,” Hannah conceded quickly and gracefully. Turning to Jake, she said, “I’m sorry. I was rude and out of line, and I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“Apology accepted.”
Across the table Emily was still pale and shaken. Jake wanted to put his arms around her and comfort her, but decided that would only exacerbate the situation.
“Em?” Hannah smiled at her sister. “Forgive me?”
“Always, Hannah. We’re sisters.”
“And on that happy note, I think I’ll take myself off to bed. It has been a very long day.” Hannah stood on tiptoe to kiss her brother on the cheek. “What would we do without you, you old teddy bear?” Then she waved two fingers at Jake and Emily. “Night all. I’ll see you in the morning, and I’ll try to behave.”
Daniel laughed. “I’ll see if I can get the Boss Man working on that, Hannah.”
“Ha. I didn’t say I wanted to behave, just that I’d try.”
“Ice cream, anybody?” Emily asked, and then disappeared into the kitchen, happy, it seemed, to have a small task to distract her.
“I’m sorry for all that,” Daniel said to Jake after his sisters had gone.
“It’s not a problem.”
“Nobody blames you for what happened.”
“They don’t have to. I blame myself.”
“I’d like to talk to you about that, Jake, but right now here comes Em with our ice cream.” He got up from the table and took the tray from his sister. “Mmm. Three scoops of chocolate. Looks good, Em. Thanks.”
“I’m so glad you’re home, Daniel.”
It wasn’t what she said so much as what she did that betrayed her feelings. The smile she gave her brother wavered.
Jake’s heart broke for her. It broke for both of them. She was close to the edge, and there didn’t seem to be anything he could do to help her.
They ate their ice cream and then went into the den and sat for a while. Daniel did most of the talking. About his work, mostly. And about Atlanta, a city so big and impersonal that two people could live there for years and never even know each other until a tragedy threw them together.
The conversation began to wane and Daniel suggested a game of chess, but Jake could tell his heart wasn’t in it. His heart was in a spare white room
where a giant of a man lay perfectly still, slowly drifting away from his family.
It was Emily, though, Jake was most concerned about. She’d lost weight. The color and fire seemed drained out of her. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her close. He wanted to feel her heart beating against his. He wanted to touch the satin of her skin and the silk of her hair. He wanted to kiss her once more, to slide into her soft, sweet body and possess her.
But he had somehow lost the right. He’d had the whole world in his arms, then he’d let it slip away.
“I’ll take a rain check on that chess, Daniel,” Jake said.
“I think I’ll turn in, then. You two probably have a lot to talk about.”
Daniel kissed his sister’s cheek, then shook Jake’s hand and left the two of them sitting as still and silent as book-ends. Not knowing what to say. Not knowing what to do.
“I’m sorry about Hannah’s outburst,” Emily finally said.
“Don’t be. She was just being honest.”
“Still…”
The room suddenly seemed as vast as the Sahara, with Emily on one side and Jake on the other. And nothing between except endless sand and killing winds.
“You don’t have to stay here, you know,” she said.
“Are you saying you want me to go?”
“No. It’s not that. I just don’t want you to feel obligated. With Daniel here and Hannah, there’s nothing, really, to keep you from your work.”
“Yes, there is, Emily. There’s Michael. And you.”
“Dad’s going to be fine.”
“What about you?”
She shrugged, smiling, but he could see how strained her smile was.
“I’m always fine. The Westmorelands are made of strong stuff.”
Was the declaration of independence her way of saying she would manage just fine without him? And why was he sitting there like a lump without asking her? Why couldn’t he open his mouth and say, “Let’s get all this out in the open”? Why couldn’t he say, “Our relationship is stalled, and I want to get it back on track”?
The answer, of course, was guilt. It seemed to Jake that as long as Michael lay in a coma, all of them were in some ways suspended.
The best thing to do would be to say good-night so Emily could go to bed and get some rest, and then hope that the morning brought good news.
She was watching him with an air of expectation. What was it she wanted? What was he supposed to do?
Jake was furious at his own feelings of uncertainty. He’d never been in a situation when he didn’t know what to do. Maybe what was happening to them was merely fate’s way of saying, I told you so.
All his instincts had warned against getting involved in a game that had no rules.
“I should say good-night,” Emily said. “I want to get to the hospital early tomorrow.”
“I thought perhaps Hannah would go. Or Daniel, so you could have a little break.”
“Hannah is going, but I’m going with her. The gardenias are in bloom, and I want to pick some while the dew is still on them. Mom and Dad have always loved the smell of gardenias. I thought the fragrance…”
She covered her hand with her mouth, trying to cover the little break in her voice, but Jake heard it, anyway. It propelled him across the room, and he pulled Emily into his arms.
“They say that smell is a powerful trigger for the memory. Gardenias might be just the thing to pull Michael out of his coma.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Absolutely.”
She leaned against him in the old way, and for a moment Jake believed they would be all right.
“Jake…”
“What, Em?”
Suddenly the softness went out of her. Jake felt as if he were holding a cardboard doll.
“Nothing.” She stood back and gave him a brave smile. “Good-night, Jake. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Night, Em.”
He stayed downstairs a long time after she left, trying to decide what to do. At midnight he was no closer to a solution than he’d been at dinner, and so he went upstairs to bed. Being careful not to look at Emily’s closed door.
Chapter Twenty
July 14, 2001
I slept with Michael last night in his hospital bed, thinking it would make a difference. Thinking he would be aware of me. Thinking he would wake up in the middle of the night and say, “Oh, there she is,” then reach for me and rouse me slowly from sleep with little kisses all over my neck and shoulders. The way he always does.
Did.
Michael doesn’t do that anymore, and I’m so mad I don’t know what to do. I want to kick these walls down. I want to jerk that tacky clock off the wall and throw it at the nurses who keep telling me, “The longer he stays in a coma, the less his chances are of coming out.”
Don’t they know I won’t let that happen? Michael won’t let that happen. He won’t stay asleep and leave me to go on without him. Alone. A half-woman. A woman who might as well curl up beside him and go into a coma herself if he doesn’t wake up.
I had such high hopes for last night. Was it foolish of me to try to rouse Michael with passion? That’s what I did. And I wasn’t subtle about it, either. Never mind that the night nurse could have come through the door at any minute for just about any reason.
I lay under the covers with my husband and put my hands on him and whispered the words he loves to hear. And hoped for a miracle.
Prayed for one.
“Please, please, please.” I said the words over and over again as if God had suddenly gone stone deaf. Or at the very least, hard of hearing.
When nothing happened I got so mad I snarled, “All right, have it Your way.” Lightning didn’t strike me dead. That’s what Mother always said. “Anne, if you curse God, lightning will strike you dead.”
I waited. Truly, I did. When I felt a cramp in my arm, I thought Mother’s prediction was coming true. By degrees. God wasn’t going to wipe me out in one fell swoop, but little by little.
Then I realized I was the cause of my own cramp. The bed is narrow. Too narrow for two people.
Why do they design hospital beds that way? It’s so lonely. Wouldn’t the patient be far better off if somebody he loved could sleep with him every night? If somebody could hold his hand and whisper, “Don’t worry, I’m right here next to you and nothing bad is going to happen to you”?
That’s what I told Michael after I tried to rouse him so outrageously. “Hang on,” I said. “As long as you hang on to me, nothing can tear us apart. I won’t let it.”
It seemed he did just that. Hung on. As if he’d tightened his grip. As if he’d had a grip to tighten.
Or did I just imagine it? Sometimes late at night when fears crowd in with the dark, my imagination plays tricks on me.
I dozed a little last night. I hadn’t meant to. I had meant to stay awake all night and work at bringing Michael back to me. I was going to force him to come back with the power of my love.
But it didn’t work that way.
Or did it? Sometime in the middle of the night I felt that familiar sweet-hot touch in what my husband has always called the love cradle. (Oh, I know it’s not very original, but it is certainly something you’d expect of a man in love with the blues and familiar with the explicit lyrics of the likes of Mississippi John Hooker and Tampa Red.) I felt his hand on my thigh moving in that soft, erotic way that always drives me wild.
I clawed my way out of sleep, still fuzzy-headed but reaching for my husband. Calling his name.
He didn’t answer me. Didn’t move.
But there was his hand on my thigh. Just as I’d dreamed. Just as I’d hoped.
Had I put it there? Or had he?
I wrapped my arms around him and put my face right next to his and asked him. “Did you touch me, darling? Tell me you did. Please, Michael. Talk to me.”
He didn’t, of course. There was not a single sound except the drip of the sink’s faucet in the co
rner of the room.
I hadn’t drawn the curtains because we’ve always loved lying in bed together watching the moon. (I thought that, too, might rouse Michael from his deep and disturbing slumber.) His face was so wonderful in the moonlight, high cheekbones, squared jaw, eyebrows still dark as crow’s wings, beautiful mouth. (Oh, God, that beautiful mouth. The things he could do with it…)
I had to stop a while and cry. I’m feeling better now. Maybe I should do that more often. Cry. Just let it all hang out.
Anyhow, back to last night.
As I lay there watching Michael’s face, suddenly I saw tears on his cheeks. He’s crying, I thought. He’s crying for me.
Then I realized I was crying, too, leaning over him so that my tears fell on his face. Were the tears on his cheeks his or mine?
I wish I knew.
Chapter Twenty-One
“You brought them!” Anne buried her face in the gardenias Emily and Hannah had brought to the hospital by the armful. “There’s nothing like that smell.”
It was the first genuine smile Emily had seen on her mother’s face since before they’d left Belle Rose for Hong Kong. It made getting up at the crack of dawn to behead the gardenia bushes worth the effort.
“Where shall we put them, Mom?” Emily asked.
“Everywhere. Michael’s going to wake up today. I just know. And when he does I want him to see flowers everywhere he looks.”
Emily started arranging gardenias on the windowsill, while Hannah took up her vigil by the bed.
“Dad,” she said. “It’s me. I want to talk to you. It’s important.”
Emily kept arranging flowers, concentrating on making her father’s surroundings look more like a florist’s shop than a hospital room. The flowers smelled wonderful and camouflaged the scent of sterility. They made you think that any minute now guests were going to walk through the door in their fancy clothes and a party would kick into full swing.
“Please, Dad. Wake up.”
Emily couldn’t look. She didn’t want to see her father’s still, white face, her sister’s despair, her mother’s anxious hope.