by Dale Mayer
Her eyes were gentle. “Of course not. I understand.”
“I know,” he said. “And it’s almost as bad.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because I don’t want you to have to understand. I just would like to be healthy so that nobody has to go out of their way to actually understand what’s going on in my world.” Then he waved a hand. “I don’t even know what I’m saying.”
“No, but maybe I do,” she said quietly. She walked toward him. “You want to be normal, so nobody has to go out of the way or make any extra effort.”
He nodded. “Something like that. But this lack of sleep …”
“Nightmares still?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s always the nightmare of the crash. They just never seemed to go away. I had a method before of getting back to sleep, but it looks like nothing works anymore.”
She frowned as he stormed off on his crutches. When she walked back toward her office, she stopped in at Dani’s office and said, “He’s still not sleeping.”
Dani, preoccupied, looked up, but obviously confusion was in her gaze. “Who’s not sleeping?”
“Heath.”
Dani nodded, comprehension filling her gaze. “No, he isn’t. It’s a definite problem.”
Hailee stood in the doorway for a long moment. “Meditation? White noise? Music? Have any of those things helped?
“No, not at all.” Dani looked at her in surprise. “Good thought though.”
Hailee looked out over the window not sure what to say. Except…
“I’ll talk to his team and see if there is anything else we might try.” Dani frowned down at her desk as if already wondering who to contact.
“I know,” Hailee said. She took a deep breath and added, “On a side note, I was wondering if you needed another cleaning lady. I could do a few hours in the evening.”.”
“No,” Dani said firmly. “One job for you. You are making enough now you don’t need to do that.”
“Hey, maybe he was falling asleep to my mopping,” she joked. “We could try it,” Hailee said slowly, “if it worked, maybe we’d find another way to make that work out for him permanently?”
“You mean, like having my current cleaning lady come by at that hour? Because you certainly aren’t going back to that.” Dani looked at her pencil, tapping her desktop.
“Well, that’s possible,” Hailee said. “But it doesn’t mean her mop strokes will have the same rhythm, and we can hardly teach or expect another cleaning lady to maintain my particular rhythm so somebody else can sleep.”
“I’m glad you said that,” Dani said gently, “because that is an imposition.”
“It might be worth a try.” Hailee didn’t know what else to do or say so quietly withdrew. But she couldn’t let go of it as she went through the rest of her day and evening. She did go to bed at ten, but she set her alarm for two. As soon as she woke up, she quickly dressed and headed to the central part of the building.
There, she went into the utility closet and pulled out her mop. She filled her bucket with hot water because, if she was out here and she would be mopping, then she might as well do an excellent job of it. When she passed one of the other cleaning ladies, the woman just ignored her. And that was the way Hailee wanted it. She went two doors down Heath’s hallway and proceeded to slowly and methodically mop the floor.
Coming back up against Heath’s door, she spent a few extra minutes there, slowly mopping. She didn’t know if he was awake or asleep or if she was making any difference tonight, but she kept up the rhythm as she had done before for him. By the time the hallway was done, it was well past three.
She emptied out her mop bucket and put all her equipment away, then went back to bed. The next morning, she got up, tired, yawning in the middle of her coffee, as she headed to her office. By then, she needed food so went for a coffee break and grabbed an apple. She walked out on the deck, lifting her face to the sun. A few minutes later, she heard a voice behind her. She turned, saw Heath, and smiled. “Wow,” she said. “Don’t you look better.”
He nodded. “Maybe I finally turned the corner. For some reason last night I slept really well.”
“Did you wake up?” She didn’t know how to take the news. Great that he slept, but she was so tired that it’s obvious she couldn’t do this every night.
He frowned, searched her face, then shrugged. “I might have, but I fell back asleep again. I know I’ll need lots more sleep like this, but, man, that really made a huge difference.”
She smiled. “I hear you. Nothing like getting a good night’s sleep.”
As she headed back to her office, she felt good. She didn’t know if it was from her own mopping, but the fact was, he’d had a good night’s sleep, and she herself identified with just how valuable that was for healing. She didn’t know if she should even try to keep it up, but she thought, if she did it for a couple nights and then didn’t do it, maybe she could tell if Heath was sleeping better because of her mopping. She felt foolish getting up every night doing this, but she was determined to try and see him through it. Nothing in the world helped a soul heal as much as the proper rest.
She went through that new routine for the next three nights. Getting up and mopping his floor, putting away everything, not saying a word to anyone, and then falling back into bed. On the fourth night, she didn’t do it. And, when she got up Friday morning, she’d slept better because she hadn’t gotten up in the night, but now she was racked with guilt.
Instead of going to the cafeteria first, she headed to her office and started in on her work. She didn’t hear from anybody and, of course, why would anybody know about her experiment, much less be worried about it? But finally she had to find out, and it was lunchtime. It was early, so she got up and headed to the cafeteria, looking for him. She saw no sign of him. She looked around, and then, after she’d eaten, she grabbed a coffee and a muffin to take back to her office and headed by his room. He was coming out as she went past. She stopped, smiled at him, and said, “Hey.”
He nodded and said, “Hey.”
But it was apparent he wasn’t too happy. She frowned. “Not a good night?”
He shrugged. “I guess I can’t have good nights every night. I did for the last several nights, and I thought maybe I had turned the corner, but last night was one of those rude awakenings that I really didn’t need.”
“Aah,” she said, “I’m sorry.” Inside, her heart sank. She felt guilty but gave him a warm smile and said, “Maybe you’ll have another good night tonight.”
“Maybe,” he said, but he didn’t look at all convinced.
She walked away, feeling terrible, because there had to be a start and stop to this, and she just didn’t know what to do about it. She quickly turned and headed back to her office. As a test, it was minor and inconclusive, but it was definitely leaning toward the fact that maybe she had been the reason that he had been sleeping. And that made her feel even worse for not following up with it.
Surely she could do something for him. But, for the rest of the day and that evening, she determined she would return and do the mopping. And it was two o’clock when she headed back up again. This time, when she walked into the hallway, Dani stood there, her arms crossed over her chest, frowning at her.
Feeling guilty, but not knowing what else to do but to continue with her plan, she held up a finger to Dani and slowly and methodically mopped the floor. When she was done, Dani standing there and watching her in amazement, Hailee gathered up her bucket and grabbed her mop and pointed to the far end of the hallway.
Once they walked there, Dani asked in a low voice, “Why?”
Together, the two of them walked through the silent building and back out to the big deck, where usually Hailee would go downstairs to her own apartment. There, with the two of them under the moonlight, Hailee explained about Heath not sleeping without the mopping sound. Dani looked at her in surprise. “Well, I knew that he was looking for the cleaning lady
from weeks ago,” she said. “I hadn’t realized it was connected to his sleep pattern.”
Hailee nodded. “And I only started again a few days ago. He just looked so ragged all the time, and I thought that, if I could at least help him get a good night’s sleep, he would heal.”
Dani’s small smile started at the corner of her lips, and, before long, her whole face held a big beautiful smile. “You really care about him, don’t you?”
“I shouldn’t,” Hailee said hurriedly. “It’s terrible to care.”
“No,” Dani said, immediately reaching out a hand to squeeze Hailee’s fingers. “It means being human.”
“But it hurts,” Hailee said in a low voice. “It hurts so damn much.”
The two women stared off in the distance. “The thing is, words can say a lot,” Dani said, “but they don’t show the person on the inside. So then, when you listened to the words, but you didn’t actually see who was under them—when their actions and their words didn’t match—you felt abandoned and bereft. Yet now, in your case, you didn’t tell anybody what you were doing, but your efforts were there because all you were trying to do was give Heath a good night’s sleep. Do you know how few people would get up in the middle of the night to come mop the floor outside his room so that he could sleep?”
“You know how many people would think I was nuts for doing it?” Hailee said, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “Or how crazy he is for needing that?”
“It doesn’t matter as to the wisdom of it or whether anyone understands it,” Dani said. “After we’ve seen as many patients as we have, we realize that we’re all unique, and, for whatever reason, that sound cemented something for him, and it allowed him to fall back asleep. And, when he lost it, and I didn’t realize it was that severe, he couldn’t rest anymore. Shane said that he’d taken a couple steps back, but I hadn’t really understood why.”
“Well, the real trick,” Hailee said, “is if Shane says this last week that Heath has improved because I’ve been doing this for the week. Then I stopped last night, and Heath had a terrible night, so I returned tonight so he could sleep again.”
“Wow,” Dani said. “That’s devotion.”
Hailee stopped and frowned because, in some ways, she didn’t even think about it and, indeed, hadn’t labeled it. “I don’t really want to think of it that way,” she muttered.
“Too bad,” Dani said, “because you do not see your actions for what they are.”
“Why?” she said defiantly. “I’m just trying to be nice.”
But Dani’s eyes saw a whole lot more. “Are you telling me that your heart doesn’t flutter when you get close to him? That you don’t spend a good part of your day wondering if you can detour so you can pass his room or meet up with him in the cafeteria? And that you don’t look forward to the meetings that you have planned with him?”
“All of that just means we’re good friends,” Hailee said. “Or that we’re heading toward being good friends.”
Dani’s smile was luminous in the darkness. “Oh, it does, indeed,” she whispered. “But it also says so much more. There’s a connection between the two of you. And, if you’re lucky, it’ll become something so much more.”
“But then I have to trust,” Hailee whispered back. “And I lost so much last time.”
“You lost everything important,” Dani said with a nod. “But that doesn’t mean it will happen a second time, and it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t worth going down that path in the first place. Do you regret having Jacob in your life?”
Hailee looked at her in horror. “Of course not. He was everything to me.”
“So, when you lost him,” she said quietly, “you lost everything important. But, if you hadn’t gone down that path, if you hadn’t tried, you wouldn’t have had him in your life in the first place. So I’d like to believe that everything happens for a reason. And, even though your husband turned out to be a waste of human space and absconded before he had to deal with the pain of losing his own child, that just makes him a weak person with a whole lot more lessons to learn.
“And I’d rather see you fall back in love again, even if it hurts a second time because through that hurt we grow. And through that hurt, great things come, like Jacob. Yes, Jacob wasn’t on this earth for long, and it hurt you tremendously to lose him. But just imagine how empty you would be inside if he hadn’t even shown up in the first place?” With that, she patted Hailee gently on the shoulder and gave her a quick hug. “Now that I know what you’re up to in the middle of the night, I’m going to bed.”
As she walked away, Hailee turned and called out, “How did you know I would be there?”
“The other cleaning lady,” she said. “She asked why I was hiring somebody to do just that hallway and what was she not doing good enough.”
Hailee laughed. “She’s doing a good job,” she said. “She just wasn’t doing it at the right time or with the right rhythm.”
Dani smiled and nodded. “So I came to see for myself, … and this isn’t over by the way.” She shook a finger at her. “We do need a better solution than this.”
“Well, it’d be nice to get my own sleep,” Hailee said.
“Absolutely,” Dani said. “And that’s something you have to consider.”
“Maybe,” Hailee said, “but I still don’t want him to end up with no sleep.”
“I hear you, but that’s not always the same thing.”
“No, it isn’t, and that’s why we have to sort through this.”
“Maybe we can,” Dani said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
And, with that, Hailee headed to bed herself.
The next morning Heath woke up, feeling rested and relaxed. He rolled over slowly, feeling a sense of inner peace in his life. “Finally,” he muttered. “I was so afraid those few nights would just be the oddity, and I’d never sleep again.” When a hard knock came on his door, he called out, “Come in.” He watched in surprise as Shane headed in.
Shane saw him in bed, stopped, and said, “Wow, does that mean you had a good night or a bad night?”
“A good night again,” Heath said, slowly shifting in the bed, so he was leaning against the headboard. “I literally just woke up a few minutes ago. I gather I’m late?”
“Not necessarily,” Shane said. “I can push you back a bit if you want.”
“Well, coffee and some food would probably be a good idea.” At that, his tummy rumbled.
Shane smiled. “Well, absolutely nothing is better for you than a good night’s sleep, so the chances are that we’ll just push this back to this afternoon, if you’ve got time. Maybe we’ll do a pool session instead.”
“Perfect. The pool sounds great. What time is it?”
Shane, heading back to the hallway already, turned and laughed at him. “It’s past ten-thirty.” And he was gone.
Heath stretched out in the bed. “Is that what good sleep’s all about?” He slowly sat up and stretched again. Even though he was stiff, and some parts of him were sore, the rest of him felt so damn good that it was almost impossible to sort it out. He tried to remember whether he’d woken up in the night and thought he’d surfaced once or twice and then had fallen under again.
Maybe he wasn’t thinking about his cleaning lady anymore. Perhaps he was finally past that hurdle. He got up, showered, dressed, and, by the time he made it into the cafeteria, he was already heading for the lunchtime crowd. Dennis took one look at him and said, “Wow, you look bright-eyed and cheerful.”
“I slept solid and slept late too,” he said. “Now I’m starving.”
Dennis immediately loaded him up with fried chicken and a big plate of greens. “Here you go.”
He crutched to an empty table on the deck and sat down out in the sunshine. He sat here for a long moment, sipping his coffee and looking around him. When Dani happened upon him a few moments later, he looked up, smiled, and said, “Quite the place you got here, Dani.”
She stopped,
looking at him in surprise, and said, “Don’t you look good today.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re like the third person to tell me that. I didn’t realize just what a good night’s sleep was doing for me.”
“Last night?”
He nodded. “All of a sudden, I started to sleep again.”
A small smile played at the corner of her lips. “Perfect,” she said. “There’s nothing better for you.” And, with that, she disappeared. He saw her talking to Shane down at the far end, but he ignored them. He was totally okay to go to the pool this afternoon and to work out there, but he wanted food first. He attacked his lunch with gusto, and, by the time he made his way to the pool at two o’clock for his afternoon physical therapy session, Shane was there, waiting for him.
“Let’s see what a good night’s sleep has done for you,” he said, and he proceeded to put him through the paces. By the time he was done, it was almost four-thirty, and Heath was in the hot tub.
“I think I did much better today,” he said, staring up at the sky.
“There’s no think about it,” Shane said. “Now just repeat whatever that magical moment was that gave you all that sleep again.”
He smiled and said, “I wish I knew.”
As he went to bed that night though, he thought about it and wondered if he was still waking up at two o’clock or maybe just the silence now was setting him back to sleep again. He drifted off to sleep quickly. And, when he woke up later, he checked his watch to find it was yet again two a.m. He sighed and settled in and realized he would probably not get in a good night’s sleep this time. As he drifted into a half dose, he heard in the background the same mopping sounds. He smiled, feeling that same sense of comfort, and he closed his eyes and drifted yet again back under.
He didn’t know who was out there, but he was grateful that somebody was back, mopping the floor, almost as if just for him.
Chapter 15
When Hailee came into work the next morning, both Dani and Shane waited for her in the hallway. She frowned at them both. “What’s up?” They just shook their heads and waited until she unlocked her door and stepped inside. “Okay, now you’ve got me worried,” she half joked. “What have I done?”