Disguised Blessing

by Georgia Bockoven

  With all those deliveries to make, Lynda had figured they wouldn’t get out of there before noon. It wasn’t even ten.

  “I did, but I cut the speeches short because I knew you were waiting.”

  “I haven’t told Ray good-bye yet.”

  Catherine smiled at Brian. “Do you think we could be making too big a deal out of this good-bye stuff when Lynda is coming back for physical therapy and a dressing change in two days?”

  “My dad taught me not to answer questions like that.”

  Catherine laughed. “Smart man.”

  The door opened again. Jack offered a smile as big as the presentation bouquet of roses and orchids he carried in his arms. “How’s my girl today?” He swept into the room and gave Lynda a kiss. “Ready to blow this joint?”

  Catherine stared at the ostentatious display of flowers dwarfing her daughter and at the tight lines around Jack’s mouth when he stopped smiling. They’d run into each other the night before when he dropped off one of his shirts for Lynda. Uncharacteristically, he’d been the one to suggest the shirt when Lynda told him she needed something light and loose to wear until her back was healed and the bandages gone. He’d started the strange turnaround the day after she and Tom broke up. She’d been suspicious at first, believing Tom and Jack had formed some unholy alliance. But Jack’s reaction to her announcement that the engagement was off was too genuine to be fake.

  Jack swore, as she’d known he would, and then grew quiet, which she’d expected, too. It was funny how well she still knew him, even after the transformation he claimed to have gone through when he hit forty. What she hadn’t anticipated was the sincere expression of regret that things hadn’t worked out for her and Tom. For once his feelings didn’t come across as completely self-serving, which seemed to surprise him as much as it did her.

  “I didn’t know you were planning to be here this morning,” Catherine said.

  “I didn’t either,” he admitted. “And then I realized there was nowhere else I would rather be.”

  Catherine looked at her daughter. Lynda was fighting a smile, afraid to seem too pleased, too vulnerable to her father’s capricious affection. “Do you have to get back right away or can you stay for a few minutes? Lynda and Brian were about to say good-bye to a friend.”

  He looked at his watch. “I have some time.” To Lynda he said, “You two go ahead. I’ll be here when you get back—if you’re not too long.”

  Lynda seemed unsure what to do with the flowers. Catherine took them from her and laid them on the bed. “They’ll keep a while longer.”

  “We’ll be in Ray’s room if anyone is looking for us.” At the door she turned to her father. “Thank you for the flowers. And for remembering.”

  When she was gone, Jack wiped his hands across his forehead. “Am I really that bad, or is that just the way she sees me? How could she think I would forget this is the day she goes home?”

  “She doesn’t know what to think where you’re concerned, Jack. You’re an amazing, caring father one minute and then disappear from her life for weeks at a time. She’s afraid to trust you.”

  “I get busy…”

  “Please—let’s not get into this today. You’re who you are. Nothing is going to change that.”

  “What’s this? No lecture on fatherhood? Not even going to tell me about all I’m missing by not being around more?” He put up his hand to stop her answer. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. And unfair. You’ve never accused me of anything that wasn’t true.”

  Apologizing was not Jack’s style. He’d come close a couple of times, but not once in all the years she’d known him had he come right out and said he was sorry for anything. “What’s going on here?”

  He looked at her and then away, staring at the wall as if an original Monet had suddenly appeared. “It seems I’m going to be a father again.”

  She caught her breath. She hadn’t even known he was seeing anyone seriously. “When?”

  “Six months, give or take.”

  “How long have you known?” She didn’t know why it mattered, only that it did.

  “A week or so. I went to Michelle’s house after I left here.” His mouth curved in a smile filled with irony. “I was looking for a quiet port in the storm after the bomb you dropped on me about you and Tom.”

  “How do you feel about it?” she asked carefully.

  “Trapped. At least that was the way I felt in the beginning. This morning…I don’t know. I’m forty-two years old. I keep thinking how old I’ll be when the kid graduates college. I’ll look like his grandfather. Hell, I’ll be old enough to be his grandfather.”

  She didn’t have it in her to feel sorry for him. Her first thoughts were for Lynda, and what it would mean to have to share what little time Jack had to devote to a child. “I take it Michelle wants to have the baby?”

  “She’s ecstatic—said she’s always wanted a baby and is willing to raise it alone if I’m not interested.”

  Jack had an amazing knack for finding willing, malleable women. “It’s not as easy as the sitcoms make it out to be. You should tell her to talk to a few single mothers before she makes any more statements like that.”

  He studied her for a long time. “You and Lynda seem to get along okay.”

  She snapped. “By whose yardstick are you measuring our lives? How do you know what your daughter feels when she’s cheerleading at a football game and looks up in the stands and I’m the only parent looking back? What about the school play you missed last year? The soccer games? And that’s the easy stuff, Jack. All the weekends you were supposed to take her but let ‘business’ get in the way, all the times you told her you would call when you were out of state and then forgot, all the generic presents you gave her because you had no idea what your daughter was really like—you can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve done to her self-confidence through your casual, insidious neglect.”

  She threw her hands up in frustration. “I’m giving you the lecture I just said I wouldn’t give you. How do you do this to me?”

  He ignored her question. “How am I supposed to know what she’s like or what she needs when I never see her?”

  “Precisely,” Catherine said wearily.

  “We’ve had this discussion before, haven’t we?”

  “More times than I want to remember.”

  “What do I say?”

  It didn’t surprise her that he didn’t know. “You promise to try harder.”

  “Obviously I don’t succeed.”

  “Obviously.”

  “There’s no reason to believe I would be any different the second time around?” he said.

  “None that I can think of.”

  “Still—it’s not like I have a choice whether I want to be a father again. Michelle told me she’s going to have the baby with or without me.”

  “This is crazy, Jack. I’m the last person you should be talking to about your impending fatherhood. I can’t even find a generous spot in my heart to be happy for you.”

  “No, but you will. You’re the most generous person I know. Right now you’re worried about Lynda and there’s nothing I can say that will convince you I intend to be a better father to her from now on. But I will. You’ll see.”

  “Don’t do that. I don’t want to count on you. I’d rather go on thinking you’re a son of a bitch and letting you surprise me the rare times you do something nice.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Another apology? Twice in one day? She waited for the bolt of lightning, the clap of thunder. “We’re having a surprise welcome home party for Lynda.” She looked at her watch. “It starts in an hour and a half.”

  “I can’t. I have a meeting. I have—” He stopped and frowned. It was as if his words had been automatic and now, today, for the first time he actually heard how hollow they sounded. “I’ll be there.”

  Catherine felt a flutter in her chest, a feeling she remembered but didn’t recognize right away. And then she
knew what it was: hope. She didn’t welcome the feeling. All her adult life hope had led to disappointment. She’d learned to live without the first and she sure as hell didn’t need the latter.

  “Come if you can. I won’t count on you. And I won’t say anything to Lynda.”

  “I guess I deserve that.”

  “Guess?”

  “All right. I do deserve it. But I’m going to change. From now on she’s going to know that she can count on me.”

  Catherine only looked at him.

  “I’ve said that before, too, haven’t I?”

  Damned by his own words. Catherine almost sighed with relief. She wouldn’t have to worry about hope dying again. It was already gone.

  16

  BRIAN TIED THE BACK OF LYNDA’S GOWN AND FITTED her mask over her cap, adjusting the protective clothes they wore when they visited Ray. He started to reach for her shoulders to turn her around for a mock inspection when he remembered he couldn’t touch her there. Or at her waist. Or at the small of her back.

  After being in the hospital with her for three and a half weeks, knowing where he could and couldn’t touch her should have been a given, automatic even. But he always forgot. At least for an instant. It was because she hardly ever complained. He’d overheard a nurse telling Catherine that Lynda was in constant pain, only the amount changed, depending on when she’d received her drugs. He liked to think he would be as strong, but he wasn’t so sure.

  He’d never known anyone like her. His friends, especially the ones on the football team, were always getting knocked around and hurt. They were babies compared to Lynda.

  “You’re done,” he said. His reward was a behind-the-mask smile that reached her eyes.

  “Want me to do you?” she asked.

  She was always saying things like that, stuff to which he had an immediate smart-ass answer, but there was no way he’d ever give one. Not with her. She might be one of the top students at her school, but she had a lot to learn about guys and how they thought.

  He shrugged into the gown and turned his back to her. “I rented some videos for tonight. Thought we could veg out on your mom’s couch and eat popcorn and celebrate your freedom.”

  “What did you get?”

  “Halloween—one, two, and three.”

  Her eyes widened in disbelief. “You’re kidding.”

  He groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who don’t appreciate Halloween.”

  “Ugh.”

  “None of them? Not even the first one where—”

  “I’d rather watch the Three Stooges.”

  He gave her a triumphant grin. “As a matter of fact, they were all out of Halloween so I picked up five Three Stooges movies. We’re gonna have ourselves a Three Stooges marathon.”

  “You did not. No one really likes those guys. They just say they do.”

  He loved her laugh. It was never forced or phony and always made him feel good about himself, especially when he was the one who’d prompted it. “Okay—you win. You get to pick.” He leaned close. “This time.”

  “Anything? Even a chick flick?”

  “You’re pushing it.”

  “I know the perfect one. No, make it two.”

  “I can hardly wait.”

  Again her eyes crinkled in a smile. “While You Were Sleeping.”

  “And?” he asked warily.

  “There’s Something About Mary.”

  He laughed. “I think I could handle that.” He put his mask over his face and reached for the door, pushing it open and holding it for her while she went inside.

  Ray glanced up from the television when he heard them enter. “Hey—how’s it going?” He spoke slowly, each word formed with effort and paid for in pain. “Today’s the big day, huh?”

  Brian stood next to Lynda so that Ray could see them without having to move his head. They’d been dropping in on Ray for three weeks, and Brian kept waiting for him to show improvement the way Lynda had; not as dramatically, perhaps, but at least indicating he was getting better. But he always looked the same, no better, no worse. After his grafting surgeries, the drugs left him struggling to remember sentences he’d spoken only minutes before. Brian and Lynda would fill in the blanks later, adding dialogue that never happened until it became so outlandish Ray caught on and they all laughed.

  Swathed in bandages that covered most of his body, he looked like a mummy in the making. In the beginning they’d talked about easy things—school and football and girls. Lately they’d talked about what would happen when Ray left the hospital, how he’d live with the aunt he hardly knew in a town he’d never visited and how hard it would be to make new friends looking the way he did.

  Ray’s girlfriend had come a couple of times and then told him her mother didn’t want her making the long drive by herself anymore. Friends had come, too, but rarely more than once. When Lynda found out, she started dropping in several times a day. Brian always stopped by a final time before he left at night, sometimes only staying a minute or two, once staying over an hour.

  He and Lynda tried to do what they could, but they weren’t Ray’s real friends or his family. They had no history, no shared memories, and Brian sometimes wondered if they made things worse. They were past visiting because they felt sorry for him, but there was no denying that’s why they’d started.

  Lynda gently laid her hand on Ray’s arm, as she did every time she was with him. “I can hardly wait to get out of this place and back to my own room at home.”

  “Yeah, but she’s coming back day after tomorrow,” Brian said.

  “Three times a week. Can you believe it? I guess they don’t trust me to do the exercises at home. At least I’ll get to see you. And Brian said he’s going to bring me once in a while so he can see you, too.”

  Ray looked at Brian. “You know those books on tape you were telling me about?”

  “The textbooks or the novels?”

  “Both. I was talking to the nurse about them and she said she’d see what she could find out. I was wondering if you would mind telling her about them again—in case she forgets.”

  “I’ll bring you the ones I have at home to get you started. That way you won’t have to wait.”

  “Thanks…I’m going crazy watching so much television.”

  “I got hooked on one of the soaps,” Lynda sheepishly admitted. “General Hospital.”

  “My mom used to watch that one,” Ray said.

  Brian opened a sterile gauze packet and wiped the corner of Ray’s mouth. It was something he’d hesitated doing when he first starting visiting Ray, not wanting to embarrass him. Then one day, the drool was just too obvious to ignore and he’d taken the chance. They’d gone on with their conversation that day as if nothing had happened, the only acknowledgment a single tear that rolled down Ray’s unburned cheek and left a small, round drop of moisture on the pillow.

  “It’s not bad,” Brian said. “I’ve been watching it, too. They have some great story lines, lots of intrigue, good writing. I’ll probably keep—”

  “What he’s really trying to say is that they have some real babes on the show,” Lynda said.

  Ray took a long time to answer, his eyes closed, his teeth clenched as he waited for a wave of pain to pass. Finally, he looked at Lynda and attempted a smile. “Maybe I’ll give it a try.”

  “Do you want me to get the nurse?”

  “No—” He caught his breath. “Yeah, maybe you should.”

  Lynda pushed the button clipped to the sheet. “I’ve got to go. My mom’s waiting. But I’ll be back. Day after tomorrow. Call me if you need anything. Or if you just want to talk. I put my number in the drawer.”

  “Mine, too,” Brian said.

  “Thanks, you guys. You’ve been great.”

  The nurse came in. “What can I get you, Ray?”

  Brian looked at Lynda and motioned toward the door. She nodded. “Later,” he said to Ray.

  Ray had his eyes closed again.


  They went outside and took off their gowns and masks. “I think he looks a little better today, don’t you?” Lynda said.

  Brian had been about to say he thought Ray looked worse. “Yeah—sure. I guess.”

  Lynda sighed. “I know he doesn’t. You don’t have to pretend.”

  “Why do you hold his arm like that?” He’d wanted to ask for a long time and finally had the nerve.

  “It’s just something I do.” She averted her eyes. “It probably wouldn’t make any sense to you.”

  “Try me.”

  “I want him to know that he’s still worth touching, and his arm is the only place I can show him.”

  She spoke so softly he had to lower his head to hear. “You’re right. I don’t understand. Why would he think he wasn’t worth touching?”

  She looked up. Their faces were inches apart. “Because I don’t think I am,” she whispered. “Not anymore.”

  Simple words, but ones to break his heart. “You’re wrong.” He put his hands on the sides of her face and stared into her eyes. “I’ve wanted to touch you for weeks now, but I was afraid I’d hurt you.”

  She tried to turn away but he held on. “Please,” she said, the word catching in her throat. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I couldn’t stand that.”

  Finally he did what he’d wanted to do all those weeks: He kissed her. At first she was too surprised to respond. Then her lips softened and he tasted a sweetness unlike anything he’d ever known. He’d wanted to prove a point and instead nearly drowned in the moment.

  His forehead touching hers, he said softly, “The last thing I’m feeling right now is sorry for you.”

  She backed away. “Why did you do that?”

  “Because I wanted to.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Okay—I did it because there’s a guy standing behind me with a gun in my back.”