“Mary,” Dylan finally says. “This is Mr. Joe. I called him last night after you left.”
His therapist?
“Nice to meet you,” Mr. Joe says and holds out his hand.
“Mary.” I shake it.
“Well, I’ve got to go. It was good talking to you again, Dylan. Call any time you want.”
“Thanks,” he says. “But I think I got my head on straight again.”
Mr. Joe chuckles. “It wasn’t exactly crooked.” Then he’s gone.
I just look at Dylan. That was his therapist so I don’t pry. “How are you really feeling? Nervous about surgery? In a lot of pain?”
I can do the medical stuff. I’m staying away from the head issues. That’s not my place.
“Aren’t you going to ask about Mr. Joe?”
“It’s none of my business.” I check the computer, his heart rate, pulse, temperature, and meds he’s been given.
“I thought you didn’t want to be shut out.” He’s frowning at me.
“I don’t want you just disappearing and walking or whatever, when things are shitty and you’re angry and I’m wondering what the hell is going on.” I walk to his bed. “Your conversations with Mr. Joe are completely different. Those are private and I’ll never ask. Talking to your therapist is the complete opposite of just taking off without a word to anyone.”
He takes my hand. “You are hard to figure out sometimes, you know that?”
“Actually I’m not.”
He sighs and leans his head back. “I guess you aren’t.”
I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not, but I’m not changing my opinion about the whole rollercoaster. I couldn’t stand to live that way and we’d never make it.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I blink at him. “For what?”
He squeezes my fingers. “For making you worry. For going off on my own. All of it.”
I sink into the chair by his bed. “You don’t have to be sorry. You just need to understand that I can’t have a relationship like that.”
“I know and it’s a habit I will work really hard to break.”
There’s a spurt of relief that he does get it and maybe this isn’t over.
“I brought Mr. Joe up to speed on my life for the past ten years, the shit that’s been going on, my reaction to it, you, and what you told me.”
I want to ask him what Mr. Joe said, but I won’t. They have a patient-therapist relationship that I can’t and won’t touch.
“He reminded me that the reason I walked before was because I didn’t have a person I could talk to and it was good for expelling the physical energy that came with anger and frustration. That the journal writing got my thoughts in order.”
I just nod. It makes sense. I’ve known people that run just for the pleasure of it and others, because they are dealing with shit.
“He pointed out that same thing you did, that I now have a great support system in place, something I didn’t have back then so even though I now have people, I’m still relying on old habits.”
“What are you going to do?” I finally ask.
He looks at me. “Not shut you out.”
That’s really all I need to hear.
“I will probably still walk.”
Or maybe it’s not as good as I hoped.
“But, when I do, you’ll know I am. It’ll be because I’ve got shit going on and just need air and to walk, but you will know what that shit is so you aren’t in the dark.” He squeezes my hand. “It’s going to be a hard habit to break, but I will work on it and try to remain conscious of it. Do you think that can work?”
I nod.
“I will talk. I will return texts. I won’t leave you hanging again.” He turns to face me. “I don’t want to lose you, Mary.”
“You aren’t going to.” I finally say.
He blows out a breath like he’s relieved. “I’m going to try really hard to change.”
“No.”
“What?” Confusion clouds his eyes.
“I don’t want you to change. You need to walk, vent, write, whatever, I get that. It is who you are and it’s how you cope.” I lean in. “Just don’t shut me out. That is all I want.”
The corner of his mouth tips up. “I can do that. I will do that.”
“That’s all I ask.” I lean in and kiss him as all my anxiety melts away.
We’ll still have bumps, I’m sure, every relationship does, but as long as we talk, even if they are hard conversations, I know in my gut we are going to be fine.
“You know, you can pull that curtain,” he says when I pull back. “Mia did suggest you send me off right. I am going under the knife you know.”
I just shake my head and sit back in the chair. “You realize you are attached to a heart monitor, don’t you? As soon as that thing goes hinky a nurse will be in here. I’m not looking for that kind of embarrassment.”
“Spoilsport.” He winks at me.
“We’ll have plenty of time to get your heart rate up while you recover,” I return with a grin.
“Will that include sponge baths? I’ve always wondered what one of those would be like.”
This time I roll my eyes and don’t answer, though giving him one could be kind of fun.
“I meant it, you know,” he says after a few moments of silence.
My heart skips a beat, but I don’t want to assume what he means. “Meant what?”
“I love you. I know it’s soon, but I’ve been falling in love with you since we first met.”
I don’t even try to wipe the grin off my face as I lean in. “You want to know something?”
“What?”
“I’ve been falling in love with you too.”
He smiles. “Now that is what I want to be thinking about when I go under. Much better than thinking about what a shit I am.”
“You aren’t.”
“I was.”
“Yeah, you kind of were.” I wink at him. “Aren’t you glad you got over it?”
He stares into my eyes. “We’re going to be okay, aren’t we?”
It’s like there is a light in his grey depths that wasn’t there before. He’s wearing a contemplative smile. I get it. I feel the same—warm, comfortable, in love and ready to find out what comes next. Excited for it. “Better than okay.”
47
“Are you sure you learned to drive?” I didn’t realize that when Mary got up this morning and told me that we needed to rent a car that I’d also be putting my life in her hands.
“Yep. I’ve had my license for six years now and made sure it was renewed.” She glances over at me. “You never know when you’re going to need to drive somewhere even if you don’t own a car.”
“Eyes on the road.”
She smiles and looks back out of the car, thank goodness.
The bumper to bumper getting out of the city wasn’t so bad but once she left traffic behind, Mary turned into a NASCAR driver. “There are posted speed limits, you know.”
She blows out a breath and eases up on the gas.
I’d take over and drive, but I never learned. There was no point in getting a license when I turned sixteen since I was at Baxter. Then, I moved to New York City for college and it wasn’t necessary with all the public transportation options.
The signs for food and gas whiz by and I barely have time to read them. “Weren’t we going to stop for food?”
“Yep,” she assures me as she passes another car. “Oh Crap!”
I sit up. “What?”
“That’s the exit.” She whips across a lane of traffic and barely makes the ramp.
“Did you actually pass your driving test?” My heart’s about to beat out of my chest, and I’m sure my blood pressure is higher than it’s ever been before. “If I have a coronary, it’s all on you.”
She just grins. “I forgot how much I love driving.”
“Where are we going?” I finally ask as she pulls up to a stoplight. We’ve been
driving on I-95 but that could lead anywhere.
Her hands are on the wheel but she looks down at her lap. “Trenton.” Her voice is so quiet I almost don’t hear her. “To Dad.”
That is where her dad is buried and where his family still lives. “I didn’t think you wanted to go to Trenton, ever.”
A car honks behind us and Mary glances up. The light is green and she turns right. There are a string of restaurants on both sides of the road.
“What are you hungry for?”
We barely got a cup of coffee before she was dragging me out the door. It was almost like she’d made a decision and if she didn’t act immediately, she wouldn’t do it at all. I’ve never seen her like this. So intense and on edge. And, as soon as the traffic lightened up, she drove as if the demons of hell were on her ass. I just didn’t have a clue where she suddenly needed to be until now. “No fast food.” I need to talk to her before we go any further.
“A restaurant will take too long.”
“There is no way in hell I’m riding in a car while you are driving and trying to eat and drink.”
Mary rolls her eyes. “I’m not that bad of a driver.”
“Really? So, people were honking at you for fun?”
“I sat at a green light?”
“I wasn’t talking about that car, but the near miss with a limo and then another with a semi.” I look over at her.
“Fine.” She blows out a breath and pulls into the parking lot of a diner and finds a space.
My phone dings when we step inside and I look down.
Sean: Where did you go? I thought we were painting Mary’s room today
Alex gave the girls permission to paint the white walls, and Mary wanted hers to be a creamy yellow because it was soothing.
Me: On our way to Trenton
Sean: To see her dad?
Me: Yep
The waitress leads us to a booth and we slide in, facing each other.
“Coffee,” we say at the same time before she ever has a chance to ask.
She chuckles as she puts the menus on the table and walks away.
“Why today?”
Mary picks up the menu and starts reading it. “Belgian waffles or pancakes?”
I put my hand on top of the menu and push it down, forcing her to look at me.
“Let’s order first.”
It’s almost like demons have gotten a hold of her. There’s fear and anxiety in her eyes, and I’m really not sure if she wants to go forward or run back. She’s been pushing this since she woke up but now that we’ve stopped, will she change her mind?
“Okay.” I pick up my menu and choose something that sounds halfway decent, though I’m not really hungry right now. There’s a knot in my stomach that has everything to do with my worry about Mary.
The waitress comes back and puts two white mugs on the table and then fills them with black-as-night coffee, then takes our orders. I shouldn’t be surprise that Mary gets the truck drivers’ special. She eats as much, if not more, than some of guys at the brownstone.
I take a sip of coffee and then set it aside and put my hands on the table, palms up. It’s not the most comfortable position since my right hand is still wrapped in bandages. It’s still healing from when I punched the brick wall a few weeks ago, but I need to touch her. Or, maybe she needs me to touch her. “Give me your hands.”
She puts them in mine.
“What’s going on?”
“You know when you said that ‘you don’t know what it’s like to lose someone when there’s something you could have done to prevent it.’?”
“I remember.” She looked as if I’d struck her. I thought it was because of my tone. I didn’t know about her dad then.
“For a long time, after I found the letter Dad sent Mom, I wondered if I could have somehow prevented my dad from doing what he did. Did I misbehave too much? Not loveable enough?”
“You know that’s not true. You were a kid,” I remind her.
“In my head, I know that’s true, but my heart isn’t listening.”
She lets go of my hand to take a drink of coffee and then grabs on again.
“I’ve had so many emotions that I’ve really never dealt with.”
This is a surprise because I thought she had come to terms with her dad’s suicide. She got the tattoo, her memorial, so she wouldn’t have to visit a patch of ground.
“I still jump when I hear a twenty-one gun salute and can’t stand to hear Taps being played.”
Most people don’t since both signify a loss. “So, why today and so suddenly?”
Tears well in her eyes and I grab the handkerchief out of my back pocket and hand it to her.
“I dreamed of him last night. When we were happy. When he was drunk. His casket.”
“That hasn’t happened before?”
She shakes her head. “Not in a long time. Not since I got the tattoo.”
Mary wipes her eyes before looking at me. “You know how I told you I didn’t really have friends?”
I nod. She has more than she thinks, but I don’t want to interrupt whatever it is she needs to tell me.
“I’ve been afraid of letting anyone close, and I didn’t realize I was doing that. It hurt so bad to lose him. Crushing! I don’t know if I can live through that again.”
I squeeze her left hand. “Mary, things happen. You can’t keep yourself insulated because you’re afraid of the pain. You’ll never really know love and belonging that way.”
She nods and sniffs. “I know that, but I also haven’t been as vulnerable as I was then, until I met you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I assure her.
“I’m sure that’s what all the people who come into the ER and die thought too.”
Shit! Each time a patient dies she’s just reminded of the loss. Maybe working at the hospital isn’t the best choice for her. Not if it’s going to be the brace to any walls she’s put up.
“So, what, are you going to keep me at a distance now?”
“No.” She smiles. “But I need to deal with this first.” Her eyes lock with mine.
I don’t know what she needs to say to her dad, but whatever it is, it needs to be said.
“I love you Dylan, but I need to purge some stuff or I’ll be stagnant.”
I’m not sure what she means, but she loves me and I am over the moon for her and will do whatever it is she thinks she needs. “Then, we head to Trenton as soon as we’re done eating.”
The waitress puts the plates down in front of us and walks away.
“You know, Mary, you have more friends than you realize.”
“I’ve got Kelsey and Bethany.” She grabs the jelly packet and starts smothering it on her toast.
“You have us all.”
“Not like you have them all,” she says after a moment. “But that’s okay. I’m good.”
The problem is. She’s not.
I clutch the bouquet of daisies in my hand as I get out of the car next to where all of the military men and women are buried. Unlike the rest of the cemetery where the stones are all shapes and sizes, these are uniform. White, rounded, rectangular marble all lined up in rows. Dozens of rows. So many dead because of war, but I bet none of them got themselves killed intentionally.
Okay, maybe they did, but in an act of heroism, not for the same reasons as my dad.
It’s an old cemetery and everyone who has died from my dad’s family is buried here. Some of them before the American Revolution was fought. But Dad isn’t with the rest of the family in another part of the cemetery. He’s buried here.
Dylan comes up and puts his hand at the middle of my back. “You okay?”
I just give a quick nod. It’s also a lie because I’m not really sure if I’m okay, or will be, but I can’t talk either. My throat is closing and the tightness is squeezing my chest and my heart.
After taking a deep breath through my nose, I slowly blow it out through my mouth.
According t
o the map, Dad should be in the third row.
Dylan takes my hand and we move forward and then start reading the names. So many lost, my heart getting heavier with each step. Hoping to find my dad and afraid to as well.
“Mary.” Dylan nods to a headstone and I suck in a breath.
There it is. With the cross at the top because my dad was raised Lutheran. Below, his name, Lee J. Robins, SFC, U.S. Army. Below that is the word Iraq, for where he died, and then his birthday, January 7, 1970 and the day he died, December 12, 2004.
I let go of Dylan’s hand and go place the flowers on the headstone. Do I put them on top or in front of it?
I guess I doesn’t matter.
Then I step back and look at the marker—evidence that my dad lived and died.
“Hey, Dad.” What the hell do I say?
So much, but I don’t know where to begin.
Can he even hear me?
I look up at the sky. I went to a Lutheran church my entire life, had my first communion and was confirmed when I was thirteen. I was even part of various youth groups in high school, even though they never felt like the right fit. Yet, I do believe in God. I believe in heaven and hell. I’m just not sure if those who have died can hear us.
“I know it’s been a long time, but I didn’t forget. I just had to get through a lot of stuff first.”
I sink down to the ground and face his stone. Whenever I had a problem, Dad used to tell me to sit down and talk it over. Why should this be any different?
“A lot has happened since we last talked.” Like you died.
“You’ve met Major, I guess, since Mom brings him with her.” I shrug. “He’s okay, I guess. A good guy, but he’s not my dad.”
The tears start.
“But you know that, since you are my dad and decided to check out instead of sticking around.”
I hadn’t realized how angry I still am at him. Pissed!
“So many people said such good things about you after you died. I hurt. I was sad. I missed you, but I know that you served the country and that was your calling. Even though I didn’t like that you’d been killed, at least I took pride in the fact that my dad was a hero.” I grab a fist of the dead, frozen grass. “I could live with what happened, move forward, until I found the letter that you sent to Mom.” The tears are freezing on my cheeks because of the cold. “Why?” I yell. “Why didn’t you do what the doctor said? Why didn’t you get professional help? Why was it so fucking hard to admit something was wrong? Why was it easier to get yourself killed than stay around and fight? You had a family. A wife, a daughter, and two sons who you left behind because you couldn’t fucking cope. We needed you!”
Rattle His Cage: The Baxter Boys #4 (The Baxter Boys ~ Rattled) Page 26