“Hush, darling. I’m here. Sit up.” Gently he lifted her, slid the nightgown off her, straightened the sheet under her. She tossed her head and struggled away from the ice pack. He smoothed it out and replaced it. She tried to kick away the hot water bottle. “No, darling, leave it there. It’s to keep you from getting chilled.”
He draped a large towel over her, as the nun had done for him when she refused to let him die, and began to bathe Eleanor. First her face, and then her arms and hands, one at a time, not drying them, but letting alcohol evaporate to cool the fever-heat from her skin. When one hand and arm were done, he returned to her face, and the next hand and arm, then the face, then the legs and feet, and in this matter, talking soothingly all the while he worked over her, he tried to bring her fever down.
Face, arms, face, legs, face, torso, and back to her face again, wetting her hair, praying deep inside and feeding terror at the rate with which the cloth became hot, at the rate with which the water in the basin took on the heat of her skin. Aspirin, he told himself. She must have aspirin. He dared to—must dare to—leave her and return to the bathroom. More cold water. More alcohol. And aspirin. Water in a glass. Back to the bedroom.
“Sit up, sweet,” he crooned, holding her against his chest. “Open your mouth. I’m going to put a pill on your tongue and give you water. I want you to swallow it. Do it for me, darling.”
Something in Eleanor grew dimly aware of the orders being given her by this hallucination, but because she felt too weak to think about it, she simply accepted the fact that someone was here, someone was looking after her and she thought it was David. Of course it couldn’t be, but whoever it was, she was being cared for, and she wasn’t going to die and have Philip find her that way in the morning. She was dimly grateful and opened her mouth when told, swallowed when told, repeated the process until three pills had been administered.
The bathing went on and on until she felt cold and shivery, then a sheet was placed over her so lightly she hardly knew it was there, and the deep voice said, “Sleep now, my darling. I won’t leave you.” The phantom with the cool, tender hands stroked the hair away from her face and she managed to whisper, “Philip?”
“He’s all right. He’s in bed, sound asleep.”
Eleanor tried to smile the phantom away, tried to tell him he didn’t exist, but he made her feel so much better, hallucination or not, that she let him stay. “David… Nice dream… Lemme… dream… li’l longer. Only… stay…”
And the phantom’s voice went with her into sleep. “I’ll stay forever, Eleanor.”
David Jefferson sat in a big chair, one he’d sat in long before, and watched his sleeping wife, also as he had done long before. Then, with a tender smile on his face he tiptoed across the hall and looked down the face of his sleeping son, a thing he had never done before. “My son,” he whispered softly. “My son… And my wife. My home…” He looked around the darkened bungalow. Are they still mine, he asked inside. Are they? Or will I have to leave them again? His entire being recoiled at that thought. No! Never! After all this time, all the years they have been dead to me, to return and find them alive, it would be too much for the fates to expect me to leave. She loves me, my warm and lovely Eleanor, who is not dead.
He went back to her then and sat in the big chair by her side, looking at her, drinking in the sight of her, knowing she belonged to him and would never marry another man. She loved him, David, not Grant. It had been him she called for, him and him alone for whom she had waited with faith and loyalty all these years.
I should’ve checked, he berated himself for the thousandth time in the past few months. Why, oh why did I leave it so long before coming back? He knew that answer. There had been nothing, no one, to come back to.
Eleanor stirred. With her eyes squeezed tightly shut, her face tense, she huddled under the one sheet he had covered her with. “What is it, darling?” he asked. “Are you too hot again,?” His hand touched her face.
She shook the bed with her shivering. “Cold,” she muttered. “So cold… I can’t get warm… I’m cold!” He piled blankets on her. Still she shook. Her teeth rattled in her head, and he knew, he remembered that her muscles would be aching with the force of the spasms shaking her body. It had been that way with him, and he did now what the nun had been unable to do for him then. He did it for his wife.
For not one second longer did he hesitate. Eleanor was cold and she needed him. David stripped to the skin and slid his warm body into the bed beside his shivering wife. His long naked warmth touched her icy flesh and she snuggled close into the curve of his body, coming into his arms as naturally as if she had been there yesterday. He drew in one long, anguished breath and held her against his chest, his arms wrapping around her back tightly, crossing over, his hands rubbing, stroking, warming, comforting.
Eleanor sighed, deeply contented. “David, your boniness… gone.” Then, presently, as the shivering subsided, she nestled closer, malleable and silken, molding herself to him, every inch touching, bringing him the most exquisite pleasure and pain. “Most sub… stantial ’lucination…” she muttered.
“Lie still, sweetheart,” rumbled the deeply resonant voice in the ear which was pressed to the warm chest. “Lie still, and we’ll sleep… Just so. Are you warm?”
“So warm, my darling, my David, so lovely and warm…”
~ * ~
David was up long before the clock on the kitchen wall showed seven-thirty. At that time he went to Eleanor, checked. She still slept, still had the same look of wonder on her face. He touched her gently. Her skin felt damp, a fine film of moisture beaded her upper lip. He put another blanket on her and went to wake his son. Shaking the boy by the shoulder, he said “Wake-up, sport. What do you want for breakfast? Porridge, or eggs?”
The child opened his eyes and stared at first, then he beamed. “Jeff!” he said finally. “What are you do—” Before he could complete his question, he remembered and fear flared in his eyes. “Mommy? My mom?”
“She’s much better, Phil. Sleeping, but lots and lots better. She’s not making that noise anymore.” He knew it had been the noise which it worried Philip most. “Tell you what, let me know what you want to eat, and while I get it started, you peek in the door and look at your mother. But don’t you dare wake her,” he added with a smile.
Philip scampered from his bed and darted to his mother’s door. Before he opened it, he turned and whispered hoarsely, “Can you make porridge… With raisins in it?”
Jeff nodded solemnly. “I can. And with brown sugar on it?” Philip nodded back, grinning from ear to ear, his eyes alight with joy as he slowly pushed open his mother’s door.
A happy little boy quickly dressed, pretended to wash his face and ran to the back porch to feed his dog. The horse, whom until that moment had been completely forgotten by man and boy alike, was eating his way around the rose arbor, nibbling at the tender new shoots, sneezing at the pollen in the golden blossoms.
“Hey! Si! Quit eating my mom’s roses!” Philip yelled, running out into the yard and dragging at the reins which were hanging down in front of the horse.
Jeff appeared in the doorway, barefoot, shirtless and wearing a frilly apron over his pants. Philip giggled. “Keep it down, sport,” Jeff admonished quietly. “Mom’s sleeping, remember? Come on, now. Let’s snap it up or you’ll be late for the school bus!”
Philip’s lower lip jutted out ominously, trembling. “But I need to stay home and look after my mom.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Jeff smiled. “That’s what you have me for. It’s my job, son. And my privilege.” He threw the boy over his shoulder and limped into the house where he dumped Philip on a chair at the kitchen table. “Now you eat up all that porridge.” He sat, too, and spooned up oatmeal made the way Philip liked it—the way he liked it as well, because that was the way Eleanor had made it for him every morning before he went off to work for those few, magical months they’d been together after their wedding night
.
Philip ate, drank a glass of apple juice and grabbed for his lunch kit. It was empty! “Jeff, I can’t go to school. You haven’t made my lunch.”
“Oh I’m a lousy mother, aren’t I?” Jeff said. Quickly, he slapped together a bologna sandwich, wrapped up three cookies and thumped in an orange beside them. “Milk in the thermos?” he asked, and not waiting for an answer, filled the bottle, slipped it into its slot, then closed the lunchbox. “Here, take it and run,” he said. “The bus driver will be honking her horn up at the end of the driveway in two minutes if you’re not there, waiting.”
Philip stared in amazement. “How do you know what time my bus comes?”
“I know lots of things. Now quit stalling and take off or I’ll have to chase you all the way up there.” He made a mock-threatening move toward Philip, snapping a tea towel at him. The child ran off, laughing.
David went back to his sleeping wife. He stood looking at her for a few moments before he silently and quickly slipped out of his clothes again. He lay beside her, not touching her, and pulled the covers up around them both needing only to be close to her. After a time, being close was not enough. He ran a gentle fingertip down her spine, wondering if that, too, would be the same.
It was! She murmured softly, and turned as he had hoped she would, still sleeping, into his arms. This he thought, is heaven. He closed his eyes and let the sweet sensations of her softness, her nearness, her scent, flood over him. He let one finger stroke the hair on her temple, afraid to move too much, afraid to wake her, but needing to caress her. She slept on, her soft cheek resting against his chest, her head fitting into the hollow beneath his chin, fitting as it always had and she tightened her arms around him whispering, “Love you…”
“I love you, too, my own sweet lady,” he replied softly hoping she would know in her dreams it was true.
In her dreams Eleanor heard, and half in a dream, felt the warm breath on her temple, felt the gentle fingertip on her hair, and knew she was having a sweet dream of David. But this was a phantom David who had come to her when she was ill, who had made her cool when she was too hot, and then made her gently warmed when she was freezing, and half the dream left her, leaving reality behind. But the reality was as the dream had never been.
She opened her eyes. She saw a brown arm and shoulder in the immediate foreground. They curved up and around her, blocking her view of all else, and she shut her eyes tightly for a moment, coming fully awake, fully aware of the protectiveness inherent in the curvature of that shoulder as it shielded her. Protectiveness and possessiveness, too, were in the arms which held her and Eleanor gasped slightly, opening her eyes again.
At once she was released from the warmth of the embrace which had held her while she slept. She lay back on her pillow while the man beside her rose up on an elbow and looked down at her with David’s gray eyes, and smiled David sweet smile surrounded by a thick, dark beard. He spoke in David’s well remembered voice. “Good morning, sweetheart.”
She could feel him touching her, feel his warm length along the flesh of her body, and tears filled her eyes. She could not speak, for all the things she needed to say, need to ask were making such a tangled mess in her brain. Tears overflowed and trickled down her face. She ignored them and looked up at him through a mist, her face working, her throat thick, unable to move. With vast effort, she managed to speak at last. Eleanor opened her trembling mouth and said, “The roses as did grow.”
At that, David buried his face against her breast and together they wept for years lost, for joy regained, and for happiness yet to come. Her hands went up from his back to tangle in the dark hair and she pulled his face up to hers, her mouth asking for his kisses which were given and returned and more so much, much more…
Later, he smiled down at her and said huskily, “You can tell Grant for me, you are most definitely not frigid.”
At David’s mention of Grant, her world, the present, and all the people in it came rushing back upon her. “Philip!” She gasped. “He’s got to go to school.”
“He’s gone,” said David, pulling her back into his arms. “He had porridge… With raisins in and brown sugar on… Fed the dog, chased the horse out of your roses and even remembered to tell me to make his lunch. He tried to stall so he could miss the bus, but I rousted him out in a hurry.”
“You… rousted him out? What horse? You gave him breakfast… Made his lunch? But how… How long have you been here? How long was I sick? What’s going on?” This last came in a bewildered wail.
“One at a time, sweet.” He laughed at her, holding her tightly. “No. Stay still,” he added as she tried to pull away from him. “Come back to me, darling.”
Eleanor thrust herself away from him and jumped out of bed, out of reach of those seeking hands, and stood there, trembling, wide-eyed. She grabbed her robe and wrapped it around herself, suddenly conscious of her nudity. “Get out,” she croaked. “Let me get dressed. What are you thinking of, coming back into my life like this without warning, and catching me when I’m too sick to think, to fight back? Oh, God!” she cried, and sank into the chair. “Oh, God! What have I done? I almost agreed to marry Grant! David! You’re here! I can’t take it in. You have to go. Leave me. Let me think.”
“I can’t, sweetheart. I don’t have any clothes on. You’re sitting on my pants.”
“I’m…?” Wildly she jumped up, threw his trousers at him and fled from the room. She was still terribly weak and feeling quite miserable, she realized as she huddled in a dejected heap on the couch in the living room. David… David! Here! It was too much to believe. How could it be? Where in God’s name had he been? And how, how in the world had he known about Grant’s calling her frigid?
He filled the doorway, shirtless, barefoot, hair standing on end, and looked at her with grave, concerned eyes.
“How…?” she said again. “I mean… Why? You aren’t even the same shape!” she cried accusingly, her mouth, bruised from his kisses, trembling.
“No, darling. When you last saw me I was twenty-four. A man fills out in that many years, Eleanor.” He limped over and sat beside her heavily, not touching, but looking, looking, as if he could not get his fill.
“You limp,” she said more quietly, but with the same accusing note in her tone.
He nodded. “My leg was injured when I got lost. Before I was found it become quite badly infected. Part of the thigh muscle was destroyed.”
“You… You knew about Grant’s calling me frigid…” she stammered. “How?”
“Philip.”
“Philip? But he… How?” She shook her head in bewilderment. She had to quit saying that!
“He asked me if it was a bad word.” David reached out a hand and gently stroked the hair out of her eyes. “He said it made you mad and you didn’t even say goodnight to Grant but you told him to.”
She jerked away from his touch, and he said, “I want some coffee, Eleanor. You?”
“Coffee! You come waltzing in here like you belong and want coffee? Offer it to me in my own home, before you even tell me how you came to be here?”
“Who has a better right to be in our home? Who built it, sweetheart?” She glared at him, speechless. “You always were bad tempered before you had your morning coffee, weren’t you?” He ducked, grinning, out of the room and the cushion she threw at him missed. She ran into the bathroom, closed and locked the door then stood leaning against it for a long moment.
She caught sight of herself in the mirror, her wild eyes, wild hair, bruised mouth and shaking shoulders. Trembling, she washed her face, brushed her teeth and tried to run a brush through her hair. It felt sticky, and resisted the bristles. She shoved it off her face and tied it back.
She tightened the sash on her robe, shoved her hands deep into the pockets, and opened the door, hearing David cheerfully whistling a tune she didn’t recognize.
David returned to the living room in a short while, carrying a tray which he held carefully in front of h
im. From it emanated the tantalizing aroma of coffee and cinnamon toast. He put it on the coffee table before her and said, “Sweetheart, you still make damn good cookies and doughnuts. Thanks for sending them over with Phil.”
“Over…?” she whispered, confusion battering at her brain.
“To the log cabin,” he said impatiently. Then, “Now look, Eleanor. He said he’d told you about me—about the log cabin. That’s the only reason I let him stay around for such long periods at a time. He said you weren’t worried. He said he’d told you all about his friend Jeff.” He frowned. “I must say I wondered about your letting him spend so much time with a stranger. Just for safety’s sake, should questions ever arise, I never let him go into my camper. In fact, I didn’t so much as pick him up and hold him until he got sick from eating salami.”
“Then… You… You’re Jeff?” She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. “I thought you… Jeff, was an imaginary friend. He has them, you know. Solomon the Soldier, and we had to call him just that. Solomon all by itself wouldn’t… She choked on her coffee, put her cup down and wept wildly as David gathered her into his arms.
“You could have been anybody! A hobo, a drug addict, an escaped convict! A child molester! I asked him once if he’d seen any strangers around, anyone who didn’t belong, and he told me there was no one. And I didn’t believe he had anybody there and the other day I was feeling so terrible and Grant found me crying because Philip had told me the cabin was right beside the dogwood tree, and…My God! To think there was really someone there with him all that time and I…”
“But it wasn’t just ‘someone’, darling. It wasn’t any of those terrible things you’re thinking. It was me. And the first day I saw him he was just a little boy with a big load of problems, taking them out on a log with my ax because he couldn’t use it on Grant.”
“What do you mean?” Eleanor raised tear drenched eyes to David. He kissed her nose gently and set her away from him.
A Father for Philip Page 11