“Has he said anything?”
“They wrote on his chart that he tried to talk early this morning, but the new girl they put on for breakfast doesn’t understand anyone yet.”
“He didn’t try to speak to you yesterday?”
“By the time I get here evenings, Mrs. H., he’s pretty well spent. He was more sluggish than usual last night.”
I knelt at the side of Charlie’s chair as Tinker left the room. Lifting myself, I kissed my husband’s forehead, his nose and his lips. Although his eyes were open to slits, he didn’t respond. I liked to think he enjoyed my kissing him. He had always been a passionate man, prone to laughter and teasing, particularly as a prelude to love making.
That morning, I needed his forgiveness. I had never been unfaithful to him before. In the strictest sense of the word, of course, I had not actually been unfaithful. Not yet. But I had been tempted and I’m a firm believer in the thought being mother to the deed.
Beside him at that moment, I missed the old Charlie—the whole man, my husband—terribly.
* * *
As the county treasurer’s first deputy, I worked with property tax rolls every day. After sleeping fitfully Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, I overruled my conscience the Monday after my night off and looked up Fisk Reed’s tax records.
“I run a few cattle,” he had said. He owned twenty-five hundred acres of prime pasture land and the minerals in an area of producing gas wells. Fisk Reed was a very rich man. For some reason, that made me even more miserable. A dozen times that morning, I wished I hadn’t looked. Not only was the man charming, handsome and marvelously healthy, he also appeared to be unconscionably wealthy. How could a just God be so unfair? It was not right for a bachelor like Fisk Reed to have so much, and for a devoted husband like Charlie to die a pauper.
Late in the morning, I went to the assessor’s suite for some papers. Returning to the treasurer’s office, thumbing through documents, I didn’t even look at the man who opened the door for me; therefore, I was astonished when I mumbled, “Thank you,” and glanced up into the face I had meticulously planned never to see again: Fisk’s.
I barely recognized him, stunning in slacks, a dress shirt and blazer, and new, snakeskin boots. His playful blue eyes flickered. I smiled stiffly and brushed by him repeating, “Thanks.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The other clerks glanced up and settled appreciative stares on Fisk. Marlene, our boss, did a double take and stared at me.
“Jan, what’s wrong?”
“Yeah, Jan,” Fisk said, emphasizing my name, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Marlene lowered her voice. “Honey, is this guy bothering you? Is he a creditor?”
I couldn’t think, much less explain my odd behavior. Fisk fielded the question, keeping his eyes on me. “Not exactly.”
But Marlene didn’t let go of things once they got her curious.
“Then what’s the matter with her?” She looked to him for an answer.
He took his attention from me just long enough to flash her a million-dollar smile, after which he winked at me, waved at the others and left.
Marlene pressed. “Jan, who was that guy? Is Charlie all right?”
I nodded.
One of the other clerks pretended a swoon. “Yeah, who was that? He is gorgeous. He wasn’t wearing a ring and I saw him first.”
Marlene assigned them tasks which took them out of the front office before she focused again on me.
“Jan, you look miserable. Tell me what’s the matter.”
I had, of course, relived my night off with Fisk over and over again, making myself half crazy with desire only Charlie had ever aroused before. That wasn’t something I could tell anyone—not even Marlene.
But she was like a pup with a sock. “You know that guy, don’t you?”
I nodded.
Her eyes narrowed. “And you’re interested in him.”
“Yes.”
“He asked for Rose when he came in earlier. Do you know who he’s talking about?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe it’s an emergency—a family crisis or something.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
She jotted his name and number on a sticky note and handed it to me. It was the same number which was—in spite of scrubbing—still visible on the underside of my wrist. I’d had no better luck erasing him from my mind.
* * *
I sat at Charlie’s bedside late Monday and Tuesday atoning, trying to soothe my conscience. When I got to the center Wednesday afternoon, Charlie was sitting up, freshly shaved, his eyes open, though vacant, and his color was better.
“Honey, you look great.” I kissed his forehead. Seeing him more alert gave me hope. When Tinker walked into the room, I asked him what had prompted the change.
“A buddy of his came by after lunch. He was still here when I came on at four. Big guy. The girls said he asked a lot of questions, wrestled Charlie up, got him dressed and took him wheelchair riding outside.”
The visitor obviously had worked magic but Tinker didn’t know his name. I assumed it was Charlie’s cousin, Ted, although I was surprised to hear Tinker describe Ted as a big guy. Ted was taller than I was but he wasn’t nearly as tall as Tinker.
Back at my apartment later, the answering machine had the usual requests for donations and duns for bills. Nothing from Ted.
Thursday was the same. Charlie was sitting up straight and looking sharp. On Friday, I called Ted’s office to thank him. The receptionist said Ted had been out of town all week. He would not be back in the office until Monday.
If Charlie’s mysterious visitor wasn’t Ted, then who? Not Francis. He apologized but he did not do hospitals or nursing homes. He was too sensitive to see Charlie failing. Could not even accompany Stevie on her rare visits.
Maybe it was someone from the church or a fellow member of a civic club or someone Charlie had worked with.
The man had been there three days in a row and, determined to know who it was, I cornered Tinker.
The male nurse looked sheepish, obviously embarrassed about something. I guessed he was afraid someone might get in trouble for letting a stranger come in and work with one of their patients.
“I told the guy you wanted to know who he was.” Tinker shrugged. “He left something for you today.”
“A note?”
“No. Right there. On the desk.”
He pointed to a bud vase. It contained a single, deep red... rose.
Tinker shrugged. “He said you’d know who it was from.”
I slumped into the nearest chair and stared at a blank wall. Fisk Reed seemed to be making himself at home right in the big middle of my life.
Chapter Five
There was a new rose in the bud vase each day, yet our paths—Fisk’s and mine—didn’t cross.
Charlie’s condition continued much the same for several weeks, into late October. Then, it nose-dived. The decline was predicted, part of the original prognosis, but I had been hopeful, had a new handle on my fear after we began receiving the unsolicited assistance from Fisk, who had not actually interjected himself into my life at all. He was only there weekdays and vanished before I arrived, leaving things and people in his wake refreshed and optimistic.
Somehow those golden days of renewed hope made Charlie’s sudden decline all the more devastating.
Tinker called the office one cold, drizzly Tuesday afternoon. They could keep Charlie comfortable, let him expire quietly, or subject him to an icy ride to the hospital.
I couldn’t give him up. I had to fight this fight to the finish. I told Tinker to call an ambulance, I’d meet them at the emergency room.
I hadn’t seen Fisk since our encounter in the treasurer’s office, so I was surprised when he stepped out of the ambulance as it pulled into the emergency entrance.
Charlie was gasping into the oxygen mask, more animated than he had been in weeks. And he clutched Fisk’s hand as if
it were a source of strength. I felt a peculiar twinge of jealousy. Neither man appeared to notice me or care if I were present. They had each other and it looked like that was enough.
Ignored, I followed along as the attendants wheeled Charlie, firmly attached to Fisk, his human lifeline, inside.
By nine-thirty, they had Charlie quiet and stable. The doctor came to the waiting room where he gave me the usual spiel. They would keep him sedated, as comfortable as possible, but there wasn’t much they could do beyond that. Charlie could probably hear me, but likely would not respond. He might live a couple of days. Maybe a week.
Charlie looked as if he were sleeping and I kept a lid on my emotions all the time I was in his room. I maintained perfect control until I took a break and stepped out into the corridor to find Fisk. He stood there a picture of health and vitality. His deep blue eyes searched my face. My frustrations, the earlier jealousy that hadn’t made sense, and all my pent-up frustrations and anger detonated right there. Clenching my fists, unable to see clearly through a sudden, unexpected deluge of tears, I attacked him.
He didn’t flinch, didn’t even move, until an orderly started toward us, then Fisk pinioned my flailing hands to my sides, picked me up and carried me through the lobby and out into the chilled night.
Fighting him, I shouted despicable things, lies and accusations. I spewed all the acidic fury which had been eating my insides for too long. I was angrier, more profane, more violent in those moments than I had ever been before in my life.
All the way to the parking lot, Fisk held me firmly. He didn’t speak or try to stop my tirade. When we were well away from the building, he put my feet back on the ground, caught my wrist and pulled me hard. We did three laps around that huge lot before, eventually, we stopped beside my car. I was breathless, hoarse from shouting and totally wiped out. In spite of the heat of my anger, my teeth chattered. Fisk put me in the passenger side of my own car. I didn’t ask what he was doing or where we were going. I didn’t care. Not about anything. At that moment, my life lay expiring upstairs in a hospital bed.
Fisk remained silent as he drove out the highway and turned onto a quiet country lane, a road which didn’t exist beyond headlights swallowed by the blacktop.
I was calm and becoming lucid by the time I saw the house, a sprawling, white frame, replica farmhouse. I cleared my throat. In an hour, I had gone from livid to distraught to indifferent. I was no longer upset. Rather, I was resigned.
Fisk came around to help me out of the car, handling me as if I were some fragile piece of porcelain which might shatter with a sound or sudden movement.
Inside the house, he turned on lights to illuminate rooms in which the intricate woodwork and wall and window treatments transported an observer back to the turn of the last century. Everything was silent. There were no traffic noises, no honking horns or sirens in the distance or echoes of TV sets through the walls. I drew a deep, deep breath and just stood there for a moment absorbing tranquility.
Fisk indicated the stairway as he issued a hushed command. “Upstairs. First door on your right. It has a bathroom. Everything you need. I’ll fix something to eat.”
I didn’t have the strength to argue. Plus, I didn’t really want to. I had nothing better to do, I supposed. Charlie could last for days. I would go back to the hospital... later.
Between the thinking and staring, it took me a while to climb those stairs. Fisk made two or three sweeps as I ascended, but he didn’t hurry me.
The room behind the first door on the right was lighted by period-looking lanterns that worked off the light switch. When they came on, the room glowed. The walls were a pale coral, my favorite color, with white woodwork. Windows facing east and south had hand-embroidered organza curtains. A small hearth and fireplace—the electric, decorative kind, strictly for effect—occupied the north wall. I flipped the switch and flame sprang to life among the logs. I smiled. There is something soothing about a fire in a fireplace, even when the flame is artificial. I stood there staring at it a long time before I felt ready to look elsewhere.
The bed, a love seat and two chairs were pristine, as if I were the first person who had ever been there. I eased onto a small rocking chair facing the fireplace.
I heard doors open and close downstairs and, after a while, I smelled meat cooking on a charcoal grill, the scent drifting up from outside. My conscience snapped awake. I definitely should go down and offer to help. What was I doing sitting here, allowing this kindly man to wait on me? Would I be acting like this if I were at Stevie’s house? At Marlene’s? I didn’t know. Then I had a weird thought. Neither Stevie nor Marlene, my closest friends, knew where I was. Maybe I should call them. Or one of them and have her call the other. But which one? And what would they think of my being at Fisk’s house, alone?
Other people might live in the house, but I didn’t think so. It neither looked nor sounded nor felt like anyone did.
It certainly was a large house for one man—even a large man like Fisk.
Moving rather like an automaton, I walked into the bathroom which was a delightful extension of the pristine bedroom. Knowing I would seem out of place, I didn’t look into the mirror until lather covered my face.
A brand new toothbrush, still in its package, winked at me from the vanity siding the lavatory. Beside it lay an unopened tube of toothpaste. Like Alice in Wonderland, I could almost hear both items whisper, “Use me.”
Afterwards, I ran a whistling clean hairbrush through my tangled mop. I had scrubbed away every vestige of makeup. That prompted another question. Where was my purse? I had no idea. Maybe it was on the back floorboard of my car. I didn’t remember having it with me at the hospital. I had used the healthcare card in Charlie’s wallet to admit him. I couldn’t remember where the wallet came from, or where it had gone, only that it had magically appeared in my hand when I needed it and, apparently, had been retrieved by that same invisible force.
Returning to the bedroom, again mesmerized for a moment by the fireplace, I stood and stared into the flame until Fisk called up the stairway. “Come eat.”
Although I didn’t feel particularly hungry, I didn’t want anyone to have gone to the trouble to prepare a meal at that time of night—whatever time it might be—without my showing token appreciation. Oddly, my hands shook. I took it easy going downstairs.
Fisk moved gracefully around a wonderful kitchen, which was filled with the smell of fresh-baked bread. He pulled a loaf from the oven. He had made salad and charcoaled two of the biggest T-bone steaks I had ever seen.
“Did you grow those yourself?” I asked, remembering that he raised cattle.
He grinned as he pulled out a chair at the table and motioned me into it. “Yep. Corn fed the little critter in a feedlot just especially for you.”
He sat, folded his hands, bowed his head and muttered some words over the food, which seemed to be the signal to eat. I cut small bites of the steak at first. Most of the T-bones I remembered had been tough. This one practically melted in my mouth. Suddenly I couldn’t seem to shovel it in fast enough, stuffing salad and bread in whenever there was space.
When I finished, the only things left on my plate were bone, a bit of carrot and pieces of marbled fat. I ate the carrot.
All that food on top of my emotional upheaval left me dog-tired. I dreaded the long drive back into town, but Fisk seemed to read my mind.
“You’re staying here tonight.” Before I could object, he added, “You’ll have the whole upstairs to yourself.”
“How did you know about Charlie?”
He put a hand up like cop stopping traffic. “We’ll talk about that at breakfast. I left this number. If the hospital calls, I’ll come get you. You sleep. I’ll take care of things.”
The T-shirt he provided swallowed me. Like the bed linens, the shirt smelled as if it were fresh off the clothesline. I burrowed beneath the stack of quilts on that big four-poster bed and buried my face in the pillow thinking I would probably cry my
self to sleep eventually, if I were able to sleep at all but, before a single tear slithered over my cheek, I was out.
* * *
Daylight and the smell of coffee woke me. Disoriented, I was stiff as if I’d slept in one position all night. I didn’t want to exchange the warmth of that bed for the brittle cold, impending death and creditors, but I felt stronger. Food and rest can fortify.
After again appropriating my new toothbrush, I scrubbed my face and felt better than I had in weeks. With a friend like Fisk backing her, a woman could manage some pressure.
Fisk wore slacks and a dress shirt, which was unbuttoned and swinging open, its tail untucked. His eyes narrowed when he saw me, a freeze-frame of appreciative male regarding a female who interests him. I returned a tentative smile, grateful for the look, and caught a quick glimpse of a firm, hairy chest and stomach before he buttoned the shirt. Meat sizzled in the skillet.
“Sit,” he said. “I called the hospital. He’s the same.”
I felt restless. “Let me help.”
“Okay, pour the coffee. Mugs are in that cupboard.” He motioned with the egg turner.
“How did you know about Charlie?” I asked.
“Marlene told me. When I figured out you had given me a phony name, I decided you hadn’t wanted me to find you. But you were too late. I noticed you when I paid my taxes year before last. You were wearin’ a wedding ring.”
“Did I wait on you?”
“No.”
“I probably had just started working there.”
“Maybe. Then I noticed you again last year.”
“You remembered me?”
“Yep, and you were still wearin’ the ring. But it was gone the next time.”
Ted had suggested I stop wearing my rings, in case social services questioned the validity of the divorce. “When was that?”
“At the walking track. And when you drove by me downtown that morning. Also, at the bookstore and in the grocery store. And the ring just kept bein’ gone. “
“Were you following me?”
“No. Not that I didn’t think about it, but no. Runnin’ into you that way surprised me. I couldn’t believe my good luck.” His grin broadened. “It didn’t hurt that you liked me, too. You do like me, don’t you... Rose?”
Chik~Lit for Foxy Hens Page 4