Intensive Caring

by Bobby Hutchinson

  “I missed you more than I can say,” he whispered, running his palm over her short, spiky hair, surprised as always that instead of being bristly, it was soft, like feathers beneath his fingers. “I want you so bad I can barely walk or put two coherent sentences together.”

  “Wow. You’ll have to go away again if coming back makes you like this,” she murmured, and he felt the warm brush of her breath against his neck.

  “I suppose there’s some dumb law against making love right here in the airport garage,” he said.

  She pretended to look around. “I don’t see any signs posted, but just from a practical standpoint, my car’s too cramped and the cement’s hard and cold. Get in. We’ll go to my place. I’m making you dinner, and the sheets are clean.”

  “I thought you didn’t cook.”

  “Stir-fry. I make a mean stir-fry.”

  He’d been to her house before, but this time it seemed different. The table was set, candles glowed, soft music played. Suddenly it felt like home to him. “If I didn’t know better, Doc, I’d think you were trying to seduce me. Is there wine to go with all this?”

  She gave him a look that set his blood on fire. “I think maybe some of my psychic powers are rubbing off on you. The bottle’s in the fridge.”

  “Good place for it. Will the stir-fry keep?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Can I have a peek at those clean sheets?”

  She smiled at him, a lazy, feline smile. “Follow me, sir. You’ll be impressed.”

  HIS BREATHING SLOWED. Her breasts were against his chest; a knee rested on his thigh. Her head was tucked into the curve of his shoulder.

  Sex and love. He understood the connection now. All that poetry made perfect sense…all those rhyming words about two being one. It wasn’t poetry; it was fact. They were one organism, he and she.

  She took his hand and threaded her fingers through his.

  “Talk to me, Nelson. What’s bothering you?” She propped herself up on an elbow and gave him the half-unfocused look he’d come to recognize. “There’re a lot of red ripples around you, strong feelings of some kind. What’s going on?”

  “I’m in love with you, Portia.” He hadn’t intended to tell her yet, but now that he’d said the words, he felt intense relief. “I realized it on the plane coming home.”

  Her gray eyes widened and her smile lit up her face. “Well, that’s good to hear, because I’m in love with you, too.”

  “You are? In love with me?” Elation filled him, but it was quickly tempered by what had to happen before he could take things any further. “I’m going for the genetic testing, Portia…as soon as I can get in. And until I have the results, I can’t promise you anything.”

  Her eyes, the misty gray of spring rain, were steady on his face. “You mean like marriage and happily ever after.”

  Her tone sounded kind of flat. He couldn’t tell what it meant. “Yeah. Something like that.” He thought of his mother getting pregnant so his dad would marry her. He couldn’t do anything like that. “I have to be certain I have a future before we start planning on it.”

  “I’ve told you before and I’m telling you now that you don’t have the damn disease.” Now he could hear the impatience in her voice. “I can’t tell whether you’ll ever get it, but I can’t guarantee, either, that I’m not going to have a heart attack or die of cancer in the next ten years.” Now her voice was low and intense. “It really pisses me off that you don’t trust me, Nelson.”

  He opened his mouth to assure her that he did, but closed it again. On this particular subject, he couldn’t afford to trust something as nebulous as psychic ability. “You tell me I don’t have it now, Portia, but before I involve you in my life, I’ve got to know once and for all whether I’m carrying the gene.”

  She punched the pillow hard, inches from his head, and he jumped. “You’re such a stubborn, idiotic fool at times. I’m already involved in your life. I’ve just told you I love you. How much more involved can I get?”

  There was danger here. Her very involvement was what troubled him. “If I’ve got it, I’ll have to leave, Portia.” Voicing what he’d decided made it real, and he could feel the sickening yank in his guts that said he wouldn’t want to go on living without the woman next to him. The stakes had changed; it wasn’t getting Huntington’s that was now his worst fear. It was losing Portia.

  She was crouched on the bed now, staring at him. “So you’ll walk out if the test results are positive? You’ll leave me because of something that won’t even happen for years and years?” Her voice rose, and he could see the anger in her eyes, the tension in every line of her beautiful naked body.

  “You’ll just put me on hold and wait for some scientific test to determine how we spend the rest of our lives?”

  She was trembling. He reached out a hand to smooth her arm and she knocked it away.

  “You don’t get it, Nelson. This is my life, right here, right now.”

  “You’re the one who doesn’t get it.” His anger at the disease, at himself, at what was happening between them, made him lose control. He was shouting at her. “I’m trying to protect you. What the hell’s wrong with that? I don’t intend to ever be your patient, Portia. I want to be your husband, your lover. When I know I have time, then we’ll take the next step. Until then—”

  She was out of bed in a flash and pulling on her clothes. “Forget until then. Get out, Nelson. Now. I don’t feel like living in a vacuum for the next six or eight weeks or however long it takes. I’d rather be alone than on probation.” She was gone before he could think of anything to say.

  It took him twenty minutes to dress and call a cab. Although he looked for Portia in every corner of the house, she was nowhere to be found.

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING in the genetics department at the University of British Columbia, Nelson sat across from a rumpled, grandmotherly woman in a white smock and tried to dissociate himself as she wrapped a rubber tube around his arm and withdrew a vial of blood. His heart was hammering, and he felt as if he were stepping off a cliff. He stared at the blood in the tube. Would it give him the gift of time or rob him of it?

  “It’ll be thirty-four days before we have the result,” she reminded him. “Try to stay optimistic, Mr. Gregory.” Her faded blue eyes were kind and caring. “Remember that out of every four hundred tests we do, only one hundred and fifty are positive. The odds are on your side.”

  Thirty-four days. Thirty-four nights.

  He’d tried to call Portia last night and again this morning, but she wasn’t answering, which probably was for the best, because he couldn’t apologize for or change anything he’d said. All he could do now was wait. Unless he occupied his mind and his body, he’d go mad.

  He saw a public telephone far down the hallway and hurried toward it, pausing only to dig the phone number for the flight school out of his wallet.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “AREN’T YOU HUNGRY, JULES?” Portia eyed the plate of pancakes and eggs she’d placed in front of her sister. Juliet had asked her for this particular breakfast, but after Portia had gone to all the trouble of fixing it, Juliet hadn’t eaten more than two bites.

  “The baby makes me feel full all the time.” Juliet toyed with the syrup container, snapping the lid open and closed, open and closed. It got on Portia’s nerves, as most things did these days. Eleven days had passed since the fight with Nelson; she ought to be getting over the black funk she’d been in. How long did it take a broken heart to heal?

  “I liked Dr. Jacobsen, Portia. But I don’t like to pee in that little cup. It goes all over my hands and I don’t like that. I don’t want to do that again, Portia.”

  The previous afternoon, Portia had accompanied Juliet on her first visit to the obstetrician. Morgan had taken infinite pains to reassure Juliet, but Jules had still been apprehensive and nervous, so much so that Morgan had performed only the most basic of tests, confirming that Juliet was pregnant. She’d wanted to do bl
ood tests, but Juliet had thrown such a fuss at the sight of the needle, Morgan postponed it.

  “I have a hunch she could be further along than we think,” Morgan had told Portia while Juliet was dressing. “I’m going to my daughter’s wedding in New Hampshire next week. I’ll schedule an ultrasound the moment I get back. And we’ll have to take blood then, no matter how upset she becomes.”

  “I’ll prepare her as best I can,” Portia said, sighing.

  Juliet’s pregnancy was going to tax them all to their limits.

  Juliet snapped the lid, up, down.

  “Stop fooling with the syrup and go get dressed,” Portia ordered. “We’ve got to pick up Mother in less than an hour.” At least Lydia had made the decision to come to Vancouver. She was flying in this morning.

  “I am dressed already.” Juliet was wearing worn green track pants and a purple top with Barbie stenciled across the front.

  “You know how Mom is about clothes, Jules. She wants you to look nice. She’s invited us for lunch at the hotel. It’ll be fancy.”

  Juliet’s face took on a rebellious cast. “So that’s not my problem, right?” This was Juliet’s latest catchphrase. “She’s gonna be mad at me, anyway. It won’t matter what I wear.”

  Portia didn’t have the energy to argue. Besides, there was some truth to it. “Okay, get your coat and let’s go.”

  Juliet didn’t move.

  “Are you sick again, Jules?”

  She shook her head. “Not in the morning anymore, but I was last night, remember?” She twisted on the chair, shrugging her shoulders and moving her head from side to side. “I got a crick in my shoulder. It’s sore, Portia. Can I take an aspirin or something? ’Cause it really, really hurts me.”

  “Sure, an aspirin won’t do any harm. You probably slept the wrong way.” Juliet had complained about fifty different ailments since the previous evening. Her legs ached, her head hurt, her stomach was sore, her breasts were tender. She’d even said her heart hurt, a complaint that Portia could sympathize with, because it felt as if her own was breaking in two.

  Portia found an aspirin, got Juliet into her coat, and at last they were on their way.

  Being at the airport reminded Portia of the excitement and joy she’d felt just days ago when she’d picked Nelson up, and as she walked with Juliet to the international arrivals level, she felt a wave of such utter despair she could hardly bear it.

  “There’s our mother. Hey, Mother.” Juliet, excited now, waved both arms over her head. “Mama, Mom, we’re here, see?”

  Lydia swept through the doors wheeling a luggage cart with three immense suitcases. She hugged her daughters, but before Portia located the car in the parking garage, Lydia was making it plain she was put out with both of them.

  “Juliet, I’m so disappointed in you. I thought you had more sense than to go and get pregnant,” she chided as Portia heaved the suitcases in the trunk. “I thought Portia made sure you knew about birth control.”

  “I do know. Portia told me and told me. But I wanted to have a baby with Stuart.” Juliet’s voice rose, and people nearby turned to stare.

  It was obvious to Portia that tears and a tantrum were imminent.

  “Get in the car, Jules. We can talk inside just as well as out here,” she urged.

  Juliet got in the back and slammed the door. “I love Stuart. And I don’t care that you’re mad at me, Mother. It’s my life. It’s my baby. If you’re mad, that’s not my problem, right?”

  Portia heard her mother’s intake of breath. This was going to get disastrous in just one more minute, and she was in no mood for it.

  “Stop, both of you.” Her tone was sharp, her voice loud, and her surprised family paid attention. “We’ll discuss everything, but not right now. I have to drive through pouring rain and heavy traffic, and I’m not doing it with you two arguing all the way. When we get to the hotel, we’ll discuss what’s going to be best for you, Juliet. And the baby.” And me.

  “Well, I would have thought you could do that without dragging me all the way up here in the middle of the winter, Portia.” Lydia shivered and drew her elegant sheepskin-lined raincoat tighter around her.

  Portia bit her tongue, turned up the heat and concentrated on driving. Her passengers were silent as she swept over the bridge, down Granville Street and over another bridge to the downtown core.

  She’d invited Lydia to stay at the house, but her mother preferred the luxury of a hotel, and Portia told herself she was relieved. Having fastidious Lydia as a houseguest would have given her hives, anyway.

  As it was, she longed to drop Lydia and Juliet under the portico of the waterfront hotel and just drive away. For a moment, she considered it, but a glimpse of her sister’s woebegone face in the rear-view mirror convinced her that she had to stay, for Juliet’s sake.

  But she wouldn’t allow Lydia to shove all the responsibility for Juliet’s care on her, Portia vowed. As childish as it had seemed, she’d stuck her mission statement in the pocket of her slacks, and she would stay focused on it, no matter what Lydia said or didn’t say. Portia would provide support for Juliet, but not at the cost of her own life or happiness.

  Happiness? Portia handed the car keys to the hotel valet and followed Lydia and Juliet into the opulent lobby. Happiness was a joke. She’d fired the man she loved, who’d told her he loved her. She wanted him to trust her instincts, take her word that he didn’t have Huntington’s, while she was expending huge amounts of energy at St. Joe’s to keep from using those very instincts. How much more rational could she be?

  Nelson, her job, her family—everything about her life was making her feel exhausted and frustrated. Whatever this horrible mix of emotions inside her was, Portia was clear about one thing: this wasn’t happiness.

  They went up to the suite of rooms and waited for the bellboy to bring the suitcases. Lydia suggested going down again to the dining room for lunch, then blanched when she saw what Juliet was wearing under her coat. She hastily ordered them a room service meal.

  When it came, Portia picked at her salad, and she noticed that Juliet barely touched the fries and gravy she’d requested. Lydia was the only one who devoured her own salad with honest hunger.

  “Can I lie down on the bed in there?” Juliet pointed at the bedroom. “I’m really, really sleepy. I need to lie down. Dr. Jacobsen said if I was tired I should just sleep.”

  Portia could see that her mother was relieved when Juliet curled up under the duvet. A few moments later the sound of her soft snores came from the bedroom.

  “So, what are we going to do about her?” Lydia held her china teacup to her lips and sipped.

  “We’re going to wait till Juliet wakes up, and then you’re going to discuss things with her. She has pretty clear-cut ideas of her own.”

  Lydia set the cup down, alarm on her patrician features. “But surely you have some suggestions, Portia. You know that I don’t always understand Juliet.”

  “You’ll learn.” Feeling this irritable made her say things she normally would only have thought.

  Lydia gave Portia a long, considering look, as though she was seeing her for the first time since she’d arrived. “What’s the matter with you, Portia? You’re not usually like this.”

  Portia shrugged. “I’m just saying what I think.”

  Lydia was still studying her. “You’re thinner than when I saw you last year. It’s becoming, but watch that you don’t go too far. Your face could easily start to appear haggard instead of dramatic. Not that I’ve ever had that problem. I’ve gained seven pounds since Malcolm and I were married, all on my butt.” Lydia patted her ample behind. “Malcolm swears he likes it, but I certainly don’t.”

  “Are you happy, Mom?” Damn. Now, why had that popped out? This happy thing was really getting under Portia’s skin. “I don’t mean about the weight or with Malcolm. I just mean generally. Happy. Are you?”

  To Portia’s surprise, Lydia took the question seriously. “I think so, yes.
Mostly. A lot more often than when I was younger. Everyone has lapses when it comes to being really happy. Anyway, you don’t have to ask, do you? I’m sure you can tell by seeing me. A person’s aura is a perfect barometer when it comes to the truth.”

  “I’m trying not to see auras.”

  “Oh? And why is that?”

  Cursing herself for even bringing up the subject, Portia explained about Betty Hegard. “I was formally chastised by the hospital board and warned not to do anything like that again.”

  “Fools,” Lydia snorted. “Surely you aren’t going to let that bother you. It’s only fear, you know, and ignorance. People are afraid of what they don’t understand. Heavens, I still get called a witch in some newspaper articles.”

  “Did you ever want to stop using your ability?”

  “Of course. I still do occasionally.” Lydia poured more tea into her cup and nibbled at a chocolate éclair. “It’s not the most pleasant thing, seeing where bodies are hidden, feeling what happened to them, sensing the terror of people, sometimes even their death. I saw a movie a while ago about a boy who saw dead people. It was very accurate. I was like that boy when I was young. I didn’t tell anyone about the things I saw, either.”

  “Not even Grandma?” Portia’s grandmother had been able to foresee the future.

  “Of course I told Mother. She understood. But she wasn’t altogether happy that I’d inherited the family’s psychic streak. She didn’t want me to be different, the way she’d been all her life. She wanted me to be normal—be a cheerleader and go to the prom with the captain of the football team.”

  Lydia giggled. “So I did. His name was Allen Suefeld, and when Mother met him, she told me not to have anything more to do with him, that he was going to come to a bad end. She was right, of course. He embezzled money and landed in jail.”

  “Did she ever tell you what my life was going to be like?” Her grandma had died when Portia was only eight. Right now she’d give anything to have someone say she would fall in love with a handsome man, get married and live happily ever after. But then, she’d already done the love - and - the - handsome - man bit. It was the happily ever after that eluded her.