by Jessie Cooke
“Almost,” she replied.
“What else can I do?” he asked earnestly.
“I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
91
When they returned to the house, Reece checked his phone.
“Seven messages?” he asked in disbelief. “How long were we gone?” He picked up his phone and dialed voicemail. He listened carefully to all the messages as Bella watched his face reveal all the emotions in sequence: shock, fear, sadness.
“What’s happening?” she asked when he finally disconnected from voicemail.
“It’s Phara. She’s had a heart attack and stroke. Evens called; he is beside himself. Medical treatment in Port au Prince is not exactly top-notch. She needs bypass surgery and rehabilitation from the stroke, but time is passing, and he worries that the longer she waits to get it, the worse off she’s going to be.” Reece looks at Bella. “She is his life, Bella. If anything happens to her, I don’t know how he’ll recover—if he’ll recover.”
“What can you do?” Bella asked. “If you need to go, I’ll understand.”
“I don’t need to go so much as I need to get her here,” Reece mused. He was already scrolling through the contacts in his phone. “Who can help me with this? I’ve got to know somebody.”
Bella ran her hand over his head and kissed the top of it as she stood over him. “Let me know what I can do,” she said. “I’ll give you some time.” She eased herself out of the room, Reece already greeting someone on the other end of the line.
“What’s wrong?” Gale asked Bella when she saw her daughter closing the door to the bedroom where Reece was talking.
“A friend of his in Haiti is very sick. Reece wants to get her over here for treatment.”
“I’m sorry,” Gale said as she stroked her daughter’s arm. “Let’s hope that it all works out.”
“If I know Reece, he’ll find a way,” Bella replied, and within an hour, Reece was packing to return to Dallas, arrangements having been made for Phara and Evens to fly to Dallas for hospitalization and treatment.
“I’m just lucky that Alfonso was willing to take on Phara’s case pro bono. His former work with Doctors Without Borders is what keeps him looking for cases like this,” Reece commented. “Thanks to his new surgical clinic, he’ll be able to do the bypass and get her the rehab for the stroke as soon as they get here.”
“When’s that?” Bella asked.
“Wednesday. I’ve arranged for a medevac team, but the soonest I could get the helicopter rented was for Wednesday.”
“What about Evens? Where will he stay?”
“I’ll set him up with the apartment in Grapevine. It’ll be a little ways from the clinic, but he’ll at least have a home base. When Phara is well enough to leave the hospital, he’ll have a place ready for her to recover.”
“I guess it’s a good thing you have all these apartments waiting for you,” Bella said.
“When you turned down the Grapevine townhouse, I just couldn’t look at it. I couldn’t sell it, either. I think I was hoping that you’d change your mind, and I could give you the keys to it.”
“But I skipped over that one and went straight to your new place,” Bella said as she wrapped her arms around Reece’s waist.
“Our new place,” he corrected.
“The one you said you always saw the two of us in together,” Bella smiled.
“And now we are,” he replied as he bent down to kiss her squarely on the nose.
“Well, not exactly,” she mumbled, “but soon. I’ll stay here another day, then I’ll be home.”
Reece smiled. “And now it will finally feel like home.”
The next day Bella packed everything into her car—including the large nude portrait of Reece. “I never thought I’d be living in a place with one nude portrait of myself much less a second of my lover,” she mumbled as she carefully draped an old sheet over the portrait, hiding the contents of it from anyone should she need to stop for anything or pull through a drive-thru for a Coke or coffee.
She knew Reece would be busy with last-minute details regarding Evens’ and Phara’s travel plans, but she had told him she would make sure the Grapevine townhouse was stocked with anything they could possibly need. As she busied herself making lists of what she may need, her thoughts wandered over to Divine Designs. She hadn’t talked to Christo since everything had transpired with Phara, but she knew he was busy with looking at spaces for Divine Designs, determined to make this dream a reality.
A sudden idea swept through her, inspiring a tenet of their new business: charity work. Just like Reece was doing now, they could have an apartment, maybe even an apartment building, for people who needed to come to America for medical treatment. Maybe they could even team up with Alfonso to find these people who needed to come, provide them with a temporary home while they were here, design and decorate it to be an experience they would never forget. Give them the royal treatment so to speak. She had heard of churches in the area working to sponsor children from Russia who needed emergency dental work; there had to be more people in more places who needed a variety of medical attention, and what better way to use their gifts?
“I love it!” Christo gushed after Bella had run the idea by him. “A way to think globally and act locally all at the same time.”
“We could start small,” Bella said. “Just one apartment, like we’re using with Evens and Phara. But who knows what it will grow into?”
“Does this mean we’re in business?” Christo asked excitedly.
“I think so,” Bella smiled, and her heart felt lighter than it had in months.
The next day, Bella made her way to Texas North Surgical Center. When she walked through the doors of the surgical waiting room, the large dark mass that was Evens pulled her into a giant bear-hug, his embrace as tight as a vise grip.
“It’s so good to see you,” Bella said. “I just wish it were under different circumstances.”
“I don’t,” Evens said. “It could mean worse circumstances. If we weren’t seeing each other here, now, it could be at Phara’s funeral. I’ll take these circumstances in this moment. I’m so thankful.” He stopped himself short, and Bella was convinced that he was choking up, so she handed him the basket she’d brought.
“I thought you might be hungry, so I packed a few sandwiches, some drinks. I actually made the muffins in there.”
Evens peeped in the basket and smiled. “You’re becoming quite the domesticated little wife,” he said.
Bella blushed. “Well, domesticated may be happening, but there’s no wife in the title yet.”
“Really?” Evens cocked his head. “Phara’s going to be disappointed. She swore we’d get over here and you two would be married. Said she even dreamed about it.”
Running her fingers through her long hair, Bella nervously began to braid her mane back into a ponytail. “Well, we are moving in together—have moved in together,” she corrected herself. “As for the ‘husband and wife’ part, that still remains to be seen.” She decided to change the subject since she could feel herself blushing with heat. “When is she supposed to be out of surgery?”
Evens glanced at the large clock on the wall, checked the flat-screen televisions that showed numbers and colored dots for rows.
“See that pink dot beside number 84523TS? That’s her.”
“You can tell where she is the whole time?”
“Yeah. The pink dot is in surgery. When she was pre-op she was green. Post-op will be blue. Once she hits blue, we can see her within an hour, if all goes well. The doctor should be out to see us when her dot turns blue, too. She’s been pink for about two hours. The doctor said it could take anywhere between three and six hours depending on the damage and the blockage he finds when he gets in there.”
Bella stared at the screen with all the numbers and dots. “Wow. The wonders of modern medicine,” she muttered.
“In America,” Evens finished for her.
92
Two hours later, Evens and Bella found themselves standing at the foot of Phara’s bed. She seemed small in the large hospital bed, like a child more than an adult.
“She looks tiny,” Evens remarked, reading Bella’s mind. “Even tinier than she is,” he said.
“She looks like she’s resting okay,” Bella pointed out, and Evens nodded absentmindedly.
Reece came into the room in a whirlwind of motion.
“How is she?” he asked, his eyes falling to Evens immediately.
“Resting,” he remarked. “The doctor said everything went well, though her main artery was eighty-percent blocked.”
Reece went straight to the head of the bed and cupped his large hand over Phara’s black forehead. The contrast of her ebony skin was sharper against the stark white of the hospital sheets.
“Thank you, sir,” Evens said to Reece as he watched. Something within him wouldn’t allow himself to touch his aunt; he was too afraid of breaking her.
“When are you going to stop this ‘sir’ crap?” Reece asked him. “As much as we’ve been through together, you should at least call me by my name when you aren’t driving me somewhere.”
Evens’ dark eyes left Phara’s form long enough to meet Reece’s eyes. “Reece,” he said with his head bowed. “I’m forever in your debt,” he commented. “That is why I cannot call you by your first name.”
“That’s exactly why you can,” Reece said. “Forever is a long time. We’re going to know each other quite well by then, so we may as well start acting like it now.”
Bella excused herself saying she would get coffee for them all, but the real reason was the tears that were glistening in her eyes. Once again she was amazed at the wonderful man that Reece Hamilton could be. This is what she needed to remember, and not the petty things she punished him for.
In the cafeteria, she saw a Starbucks kiosk. They’re everywhere, she thought as she walked right up and ordered three coffees and a carry-out tray. She piled the empty slot with cream and sugar, unsure how Evens liked his coffee, wanting to provide him with some small semblance of comfort and not knowing how else to do it at the moment.
“Excuse me,” a voice behind her said. “You’re Bella, right?”
She turned to look right into the familiar brown eyes of Luke’s lover.
“Andrew?”
He hugged her in response. “So funny,” he said. “I feel like I know so much about you, but we’ve only met once.”
Bella smiled an embarrassed, tight smile. How do you act towards your former lover’s new gay lover? The man you could have shared your bisexual partner with?
“It’s awkward, right?” Andrew asked as he leaned in, and Bella immediately was endeared to him for breaking the ice.
She nodded in response. “A bit,” she said. “So, what are you doing here? Is Luke . . .”
“Oh, he’s fine. No, I’m here with my father. He had a pacemaker put in this morning. I couldn’t sit and listen to the beeping of the machines for much longer. Had to get out and take a walk.”
Shifting the weight to her other leg, Bella found herself nodding again. “I understand.”
“You?”
“A friend—from Haiti—got really sick. Reece made arrangements to get her here and get good medical help. She just had bypass surgery, and we’re waiting to see how she comes out of it all.”
“Wow, Haiti,” Andrew breathed. “I think if I were going to be needing a serious surgery like that, Haiti would be the last place I’d want to be.”
“Or any third-world country,” Bella provided.
“So, Reece brought her here? Trés generous.”
“She’s very special to him. Been a sort of adopted aunt ever since he met her in Haiti. She’s quite a force, Phara is. Her nephew works for Reece as his assistant when he’s there.”
“You know, I must admit that I didn’t like you at first, Bella. Well, I guess it was more the idea of you that I didn’t like.”
Bella felt an internal jolt at the sudden shift in conversation. Just when she was starting to like this guy, he lowers this boom on her and tells her he didn’t like the idea of her.
“What do you mean?” Bella asked, busying herself by working a cup out of the travel tray and taking a tentative sip of the hot liquid.
“I mean, I didn’t want to share Luke, and he was always talking about how wonderful you were as a woman, how he was so lucky to have found the two of us and discovered his true self so young. How he wanted to spend the rest of his days with us, building our own little family, starting our own traditions, the three of us. He was smitten with you, and—well, I wanted him to look at me the way I knew he looked at you.”
“But now he does,” Bella said. “And he’s all yours.”
She watched as Andrew’s chest rose with the breath he took in on the deep inhale.
“I know the whole story,” she offered. “Reece told me everything.”
A gush of air whooshed out of Andrew’s lungs. “Oh thank God, I mean, I’m sorry. I mean, wow. I guess everything is okay, though. You said you’re here with Reece, so all is well, right? I mean, you’re still together?”
Bella laughed, empathizing with Andrew’s nervousness. “Everything is fine,” she said. “All is well between us. I’m just glad I have the entire story and there are no more secrets.”
“Do you hate me?” Andrew asked as he ducked his chin.
“How could I hate you?” Bella answered. “We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of—things we wouldn’t think were in our nature.” A sudden flashback to her second rendezvous with Reece flooded her mind. She had thought herself incapable of a first time much less a second sexual encounter with a masked stranger.
She cleared her throat as she cleared her head of the memory. “Besides, what came out of it is something beautiful,” she said. “I wish you and Luke all the best, for certain. He’s a really great person. I just wish I could have given him what he wanted. I wish I could have loved him the way he needed.”
Andrew put his hand out and rested it on her arm. “I feel the same way. I’ll never be able to completely love him the way he needs to be loved.”
“You will more than I was able,” Bella said.
“We should hang out some time, Bella,” Andrew offered with a bright smile. “I have a feeling you and I could be great friends.”
A thin smile spread across her lips. “Maybe,” she said. “Of course, it could be really awkward as well.”
Sheepishly, Andrew giggled and nodded. “You’re right. Maybe someday, though.”
“Maybe,” Bella conceded. “It was nice to see you, Andrew. And I hope all goes well for your dad. Please do tell Luke that you ran into me, and I wish you both buckets of happiness.”
“You, too, Bella. I’d like to think that you and I will be good friends some day . . . or in a parallel universe or something. You’re good people, Bella Ryan.”
And as she walked away, she felt Andrew’s words. She was good people . . . and she was going to do everything she could to continue that for life.
93
“Come closer,” Phara said, her throat raspy from so little use in the past hours. She smacked her tongue against her gums, trying to dampen her mouth.
Bella poured some water into the Styrofoam cup, bent the straw towards her mouth, and helped Phara drink. After a few pulls on the straw, she nodded her head, indicating she was finished, and Bella returned the cup and stepped closer to Phara to hear her.
Phara had been awake when Bella returned with their coffee, and after a few minutes, she told the men to leave the women alone for a bit; she wanted to talk to Bella.
“Evens says you aren’t married,” Phara said to Bella.
Shaking her head, Bella corrected her. “No. Not married. I just moved in with Reece, though. Evens said you were certain we were—had dreamed it or something.”
Phara’s brow furrowed. “I saw you in white, like American weddings,” she replied. �
�In a big fancy church.”
Bella shrugged. “Hasn’t happened. Besides, I don’t know that I would want a church wedding. I’ve always imagined myself outdoors. Maybe the beach or something.”
“But you’re together,” she asserted.
“Yes,” Bella smiled. “We’re together. What has got you so worried about this, Phara?”
“I know him,” she said as she raised a crooked finger. “And I never saw him the way I saw him last. He was lost, drowning, unable to keep his head out of the choppy seas. His soul was dark, his light fading.”
Bella didn’t know how much she believed Phara, but she could tell that Phara believed it all herself. Whatever she had seen—or not seen in Reece—had disturbed her. And she had been worrying for some time about this adopted nephew of hers.
“He’s fine now, yes?” Bella asked. “The light is back in him, right?”
Phara nodded. “Now that you are here and with him. I worried. I worried that you would both be too stubborn to find your way to each other. Too stubborn to let love win over ego. Let me tell you something, girl: life is too short and too hard as it is. Stop fighting it and start living it.”
Patting Phara’s hand, Bella nodded obediently. “I’m trying, Phara. I promise, I’m trying.”
“I’m gonna die,” Phara said.
“Don’t talk like that, Phara. The doctor said that you are doing great. We got you here; you’re on the mend.”
The old woman waved her crooked fingers at Bella. “I mean one day. We’re all gonna die, girl. I’ll probably do it before you, but listen—I will live to see you married to that boy. That will be what keeps me going for now. So you’d better be making some plans and soon.”
Bella smiled. “Slow down, Phara. He hasn’t even asked me yet.”
“Oh, he will, and when he does, don’t put things off, worried about other people. You answer the way your heart tells you to answer.”
The cork popped on the champagne, and Bella looked around at the offices of Divine Designs. Six months in the making, and here they were, their inaugural party, celebrating the completion of their first major project—a plush new theater in the Dallas theater arts district. It was a small celebration with a select few in attendance, but that was just what Christo and Bella had wanted: to bring all the people who had been so influential and integral to them together.