“Very well then. May God go with you, and may she be worthy of your affection.”
“Thank you, Papa. I will see you tomorrow evening.”
The drive to the hospital was even worse this early in the morning, and Max tried to quell his irritation by answering emails. He walked up to the floor where Tina’s grandmother was with Peter at his side, and then left him in the waiting room while he went in to see them. The door was closed, so he knocked and was just about to push it when a nurse opened it and said,
“Sorry, sir, but no one’s allowed in just now.”
Something in her voice told him things were going south rapidly. “Ms. Cooper? Is she in here?”
“Yes she is. I can have her speak to you, but I need to get back to work.”
She moved impatiently away from the door and Max waited with bated breath for Tina to appear. Her face was a mask of pain and raw anguish. She stopped in the doorway and said in a low voice,
“Grannie’s vitals are fading. She’s going, Max. I’m sorry, but I need to be with her.”
His heart broke. He wanted to pull her in and hug her hard. He wanted to rain kisses on her head. He wanted to tell her it would be alright. Instead, he kept his hands at his side and promised,
“I’ll be right out here when you need me. I won’t leave until you come to me.”
The next hour was the longest of Max’s life. He could recall no other occasion when time crawled as slowly, not even when his mother had passed, because she had died in her sleep, in her own bed at the palace, as had been her wish. The thought of the agony that Tina must be experiencing weighed heavily on him, and he felt a kind of impotent anger that he could do nothing to help her.
Peter asked him if he wanted some coffee, but he refused. Then Tina walked out of the room, her head high, her shoulders squared, her face a mask of cool aloofness. She walked up to him and said,
“She’s gone. Thank you for being here, Max. I appreciate it. I have to finalize the funeral arrangements now.”
“What can I do to help?” he asked, wishing he could take the burden from her shoulders.
“Nothing. Grannie insisted, when she was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, that we make all the arrangements except those that had to wait until she passed, and that we pay all the bills that we could pay beforehand. I just need to pull all the loose ends together. The hospital will release her body today to the funeral parlor. I have to decide on a date for the funeral and cremation, send out notices, and plan for the food and drinks. I have to do the bank things as well, and get her house packed up so I can put it on the market. There’s a lot to do.”
“What will you do now?”
“I have to go home first to get the paperwork I’ll need. Then I’ll go to the funeral home, then the bank, and then back home to figure out catering and such. I also have to call the pastor who will perform the service at the chapel where the cremation will occur. In fact, I have to make sure of his availability before I deal with the funeral home.”
She turned away, still dry-eyed and stoic, but he stopped her. “Where are you going now?”
“I have to say goodbye to her. Then I’ll get my things and leave. Thanks again, Max. Have a safe flight.”
Max followed her into the room, surprised at how peaceful the old lady looked, now that the machinery and tubes had all been removed. She looked like she was asleep, her thin body lying quietly in the hospital bed. He stood by the door while Tina went to her grandmother’s side and knelt beside the bed. She took the old lady’s hand in hers, laid her forehead on it, and sobbed quietly. She was speaking, but Max couldn’t hear what she was saying. He waited patiently until she stood up, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose, before he went over to pull her into his arms.
“I am so sorry, little one,” he said.
Tina wrapped her arms around him and they stood like that quietly for a few minutes. When the techs arrived to begin the work necessary to release the old lady’s remains to the funeral home, she looked up, glanced over at her grandmother one last time, and then turned resolutely away. Max picked up her duffel bag and followed her out of the room. Even he felt the finality of that act, and his heart ached for her.
“I’ll drive you home,” he told her, and at a look from him, she refrained from protesting.
Neither of them spoke as he drove her home to the Fort Hamilton section of Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. Max liked the neighborhood, and would have liked to explore it with her. He made a mental note to do that the next time he visited her. Her apartment, once she invited him up, was lovely. It had many touches that marked it as hers, and he loved how she had made the space her own. He especially loved the big picture windows that allowed gorgeous views of the bay. He put the picnic basket down on the kitchen table.
“I had planned to take you away for a couple of hours for a picnic,” he told her. “I’ll leave this here so you won’t have to worry too much about food for a day or so.”
“Max, that’s very sweet of you. Thank you.”
He could tell that she was holding on to her control by a thread. He gave her the space she needed, but he stayed with her through the call to the pastor, then the call to the funeral home to give them the dates and arrange for a final planning meeting. Then she said,
“I need to shower and change. I’ll be out as soon as I can, make yourself at home.”
She scurried away, and max watched her leave with a heavy heart. He didn’t want her to be alone, but he couldn’t invite himself into her bathroom. They were barely friends, and he couldn’t presume to take that liberty with her. He sat in the living room and let his mind wander as he looked out the large window to the bay where a ship was making its way out to sea. A sound penetrated the silence. Max listened, wondering what it was at first, then becoming more sure the longer he heard it. Tina’s sobs tore at him and he stood quickly, rushing to find her, ignoring protocol, ignoring good manners, forgetting that they were not close enough for him to be naked with her.
He opened the bathroom door and found her sitting in the bath, the shower raining water down on her head as she cried her heart out. Either she didn’t hear him enter or she didn’t care because she made no move to cover herself or to stop her sobbing. He stripped to his boxers and got in behind her, settling his body against the back of the tub and pulling her back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly.
“Let it out, malaya,” he said. “I won't leave you.” He trailed his hands over her arms, and rained little kisses down her neck and across her cheek.
They stayed like that until the water began to cool. Max stood with her then and washed her. She let him bathe her, and dry her off, and he took her in search of her bedroom so he could get her started on dressing while he himself dressed in the bathroom. When he got back to the bedroom, she was still sitting where he had left her, still wrapped in the robe he had found on the hook behind the bathroom door.
“Sweetheart, you have to get dressed. You made an appointment with the funeral director, remember?”
She made no move to stand, so he hunted around in her closet and drawers until he found panties and a matching bra, jeans and a thick sweater. He dressed her, and passed a brush over her hair before securing it with a twist tie, found socks and boots and put those on her as well. By the time he was done dressing her, though, he was as hard as stone. Tina’s body was perfection of form, hue, and grace, and he chided himself for the sharp lust that made his mouth water to suck on one of her large, luscious nipples, and to slide his hand down to her slit so he could play between its folds.
“If you give me the address of the funeral home, I will take you there now,” he told her when at last she looked up at him, her face a bright red.
She heaved a heavy sigh and said, “I can’t keep letting you take over like this. I’m fine, Max, really. I apologize for the meltdown, and for forcing you to have to bathe me like I’m five years old. I am humiliated, and no doubt you are embarrassed.
You should leave now. I’ll get to where I need to go just fine. If you weren’t here, I would have to, wouldn’t I?”
Max’s control snapped and he was at her side in a heartbeat, pulling her up to stand in the circle of his arms.
“First of all, I am sorry that I have humiliated you. I only wanted to help you. Second, for the record, I am not embarrassed by having had to bathe you. I wish I could have spent that time with you exploring the delights of your body and giving you pleasure. I would do it again and again, if you would let me.”
He let that sink in, watching as her eyes widened in shock at his admission, before continuing. “Third, I am not leaving until you have completed all the tasks for which you might need moral support. So stop pushing me away, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”
She turned dry eyes up to his face. “Why must you be so…understanding?”
She spat out the word as though it were a curse. Max chuckled. “I like you. And I want to keep getting to know you. How will I do that if I abandon you when you need me most?”
“But you have to go home tomorrow.” The statement ended up on a wail, and Max hugged her hard.
“I know. But I will call you every day, and I will come back to visit. And don’t forget that you are coming to visit me in December.”
“I…I’m not sure about that anymore, Max,” she began, but he stopped her.
“Do you think your grandmother would want you to stay at home moping a month after her death, instead of going out to make happy new memories?”
Her eyes flashed at him in swift anger. “It’s called mourning, not moping! Did I just call you understanding? Scratch that! You’re anything but! How could you even try to persuade me with an argument like that?”
“Perhaps because it is logical.” He sighed. “Look, I know that right now you are overwhelmed by all that needs to be done, and by your grief. But if you will only think objectively for a moment, you will see that I am not being mean-spirited, just practical.”
He held on to his patience, knowing that she was still in active grief mode, because her grandmother’s death had been unexpectedly sudden, and she had not had much chance to prepare for it before it happened.
“Would it help if you thought of it as a way to honor your grandmother’s legacy that has made you the strong woman you are?”
She eyed him incredulously. “How exactly is my gallivanting off to some foreign country to watch some guy I don’t know get crowned king honoring my grandmother’s legacy? She was all about hard work and fair play, about helping the underdog and the weak, about caring for those who were hurting. Nothing about the trip speaks to any of that!”
“Does it not?” he wondered. “Did she not include herself and her family in her care for those in need? Were you and she exempt from that? Did she teach you to ignore your needs in favor of keeping up appearances?”
Before he knew what was what, she had stalked over and slapped his face, hard enough to leave her fingerprints. His cheek stung where she had hit him, even as she hissed,
“My grandmother just died, you jerk! My grief is not for appearances! Get out! Just get out and leave me alone!”
She turned away from him, but he followed her, reaching for her and wrestling her into stillness when she tried to hit him again.
“Stop it, Tina! You will only make yourself more upset.”
She struggled in his hold and he pulled her back into his arms. “Let me go, Max!”
“No! Not until you calm down.”
She quieted instantly, but Max knew she was far from calm. He turned her to face him and pulled her chin up.
“Look at me!” he demanded.
His voice was a growl of sound as he fought to control a new spurt of emotion. He couldn’t process the anger and desire that warred inside him. No one had ever hit him in the face, ever. And no woman had ever made him so hard so quickly. That the reason he was hard was a slap in the face was completely shocking to him. It must be the heat of her passionate response, and not so much the slap itself, that was twisting him in knots.
“Look at me!” he ordered again when she failed to raise her eyes to his.
When she still obstinately refused, he kissed her. Only this time, it was not a kiss of comfort or support. It was a kiss of dominance, of possession, of pent-up desire and longing. She resisted at first, keeping her lips closed until he nipped her lower lip sharply. She gasped, then, and he swept in and took possession of her mouth. When her arms slipped from between their bodies to coil around his neck and she slid closer to him, molding her body to his, he almost lost control completely. She rubbed herself against him, and he struggled to remain still. Everything in him was raging to take her against the nearest surface, to plunge into her willing body, but some modicum of common sense remained, and he pulled away, panting raggedly.
“Look at me, Tina,” he whispered, all the aggression draining from his system in the harsh breaths he exhaled as he tried to regain control.
She looked him in the eye, and he saw the same confusion of feeling…sorrow, anger, and desire.
“We cannot do this until you are really ready for me,” he said. “I want our lovemaking, if it ever happens, to be based on desire not fueled by grief.”
She nodded. “I know. I’m sorry, Max. And I’m sorry I hit you.”
“Apology accepted. But it would be even better if you tell me that you will not refuse to accompany me in December until after your grandmother’s funeral, when you have had some time to think about it more calmly. Promise me. I will not broach the subject again until after the funeral.”
She nodded again. “Okay.”
Max let her go and stepped away from her before the heat from her body sucked him back in. He knew he wouldn’t let her go if he held her again.
“Let’s get these meetings over with.”
The rest of the day was spent in the funeral parlor and at the bank, and by the time they got back to her apartment, it was dark. Max made her go and lie down while he ordered Chinese food from the menu stuck to her refrigerator. He had Peter come up, and they ate quietly while she napped. Then he sent Peter away to purchase a bouquet of flowers and some fruit. She woke up while Peter was away, and Max warmed the food and served her on a tray as she sat in her leather lounger in the living room.
“I must leave when Peter returns,” he said, regret coloring his voice. “But I will call you in the morning before I leave, and again when I arrive at home.” She smiled wanly but did not respond, so he continued. “Is there no one who can help you with any of this? No best girl friend?”
Her smile this time was much warmer. “My best girlfriend lives in California. Even if she could drop everything and come, it wouldn’t be for a day or two.” She must have seen the expression on his face because she hurriedly added, “I have a friend whom I call on to housesit once in a while when I’m away from home for extended periods of time.”
“Will you please call her now, before I go, and ask for some help? Please? For my peace of mind.”
He was adamant that he would not leave her without someone to assist her. This was no time for her to be alone. Her quiet chuckle surprised him. “What is funny?”
“It’s not a ‘her’. It’s a ‘him’.”
Chapter 10: Post Mortem
Tina waited, knowing she would get a reaction from Max at her revelation. Somewhere underneath the grief at her grandmother’s passing was a sharp sense of satisfaction that she had found a man interested enough in her to kiss her senseless after she slapped his face. It warmed her inside, enough that she teased him with the tidbit that had him staring at her, stunned into silence.
“My friend who housesits for me is a man. He’s a fellow artist, who lives in his studio most of the time, and happily housesits for me when I need him to.”
“”What is he to you?” The growl she had heard moments before in his voice had returned, now a full-throated sound.
She smiled. “He’s my friend.”
Max glared at her. “What kind of friend?”
Although he didn’t know it, Max was helping to bring her back from the edge of the abyss she had been teetering on from the moment he had walked into her bathroom earlier and taken over the task of washing and dressing her. She needed this conversation; she needed his jealousy; she needed to feel in control of something. And she had to admit that this was a safer way to overcome that all-encompassing sorrow that had gripped her than letting a man she still had a lot to learn about into her bed.
“I think you just insulted me, Max,” she said, not answering his question. “What kind of woman do you take me for?”
She wondered if this crazy, loopy feeling was part of the grieving process. A few hours earlier she was so numb she almost didn't feel anything. Now, she was flirting with a man whose expression said he didn’t find her teasing amusing in the least, and she was enjoying it. What the hell was wrong with her? Grannie was probably on a cold slab in the funeral home now, and here she was trying to make a man jealous.
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