A Kiss to Dream On

by Neesa Hart

  She frowned. “What?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just wondering if Bruce should have a geriatric specialist check her. I’ve been reading some things in the journals lately that make me wonder if her physical health isn’t more of a problem than we realize.”

  “There aren’t any indications of that.”

  “Still, it wouldn’t hurt.”

  “No.” She exhaled a long breath as she leaned back in her chair. “I guess not.”

  “You want me to handle it?”

  “Would you mind?”

  “No.” He stood. “Can I drive you home?”

  “I’m going to stay here for several more hours tonight. It generally helps if I’m around.”

  “Don’t wear yourself out.”

  “I won’t.”

  He frowned at her. “Promise you’ll call if you need anything.”

  “Yes.”

  “Promise,” he pressed.

  She offered him a weary smile. “I do. I will. Go find your wife.”

  “All right. I’ll talk to Bruce on the way out.”

  “Thanks, Mike.”

  He turned to leave, then paused. “Does Puller know what’s going on?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Does he know you’re spending the night here?”

  “I don’t know. I had him drop me off.”

  “Did you ask him to stay with you?”

  “He wanted to.”

  “And?”

  She hesitated. “I told him he couldn’t.”

  “You could have signed him in.”

  “This is a secure floor, Mike.”

  “You could have signed him in,” he said again.

  “I know.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  She didn’t want to think about it. “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll call him.”

  “Mike—”

  He held up his hand. “Don’t try to talk me out of it. You could stand to have a little moral indignation in your corner right now, Cam. If you’re not going to get mad on your own behalf, somebody should do it for you. Puller’s just the guy. This is his thing.”

  “Mike, really.”

  “Really.” He bent to drop a quick kiss on her forehead. “Trust me. I’m a pro.”

  Cammy hesitated, then nodded. “All right. Call him. But don’t be surprised if this blows up in your face.”

  He squeezed her shoulder. “It won’t. I’ve got good instincts.”

  With a sense of resignation, she watched him stride down the corridor. She should have listened, she told herself, to all those warning bells that kept clanging in her head. Sooner or later, Jackson Puller would have to know just why she couldn’t let him too close to her. For a few brief days, she’d convinced herself she could forestall the inevitable.

  The respite was over. If she’d doubted it before, the hollow wailing that now sounded from her mother’s room convinced her.

  Jackson paced the confines of his apartment with increased agitation as he lectured himself on the vastness of his own stupidity. “You shouldn’t have left her, you moron,” he muttered as the pounding condemnation in his head threatened to overwhelm him. He’d been berating himself for the last three hours—since the moment he’d let Cammy flee his car and hurry through the entrance of the hospital. She’d assured him he couldn’t go in with her. She’d promised him she was all right. She’d patted his hand and told him to go home and get some rest, that she’d call him in the morning.

  She’d looked him right in the eye and lied through her teeth. And he’d let her. “Asshole,” he mumbled.

  When the phone rang, he dove for it, like a short-stop for a game-winning ground ball. “Cam?”

  “No, it’s Mike Costas.” He sounded grave.

  “How is she?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Jackson’s heartbeat kicked into overdrive. “What the hell do you mean, you’re not sure? Where is she?”

  “She’s still at the hospital. She’s going to stay most of the night.”

  Jackson swore. “Is her mother’s condition that serious?”

  “I’m not sure,” Mike repeated.

  “Then what the hell do you know?” His frustration seemed to amuse the other man.

  Mike’s chuckles grated across Jackson’s already too tight nerves. “I know that she won’t talk to me, and that she needs someone to be at her side tonight.”

  Jackson didn’t hesitate. “I’m on my way.”

  “They won’t let you in the front door. You’ll—”

  Jackson swore again. “I’m not leaving her in there by herself.”

  “Ease up, Puller. I was just about to tell you that if you’ll meet me at the parking entrance, I’ll sign you in.”

  Jackson dragged a hand through his rumpled hair. “Thanks. Sorry. She scared me.”

  “Me too.”

  He didn’t like the sound of that. “I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “Bring some coffee. The stuff in the lounge sucks.”

  “Right.” Balancing the cordless phone on his shoulder, he was already scooping grounds into a clean filter. “Anything else I should know?”

  “It’s not pretty. She isn’t going to want you there.”

  “I know that.”

  “Cammy’s more fragile on this count than she lets on. This isn’t something she shares with people.”

  “Got it.”

  “She’s under a lot of emotional pressure.” Mike paused. “Add a healthy measure of guilt to that, and it’s a pretty volatile situation.”

  “Volatile. Right.” He switched the coffeepot on, then headed for his bedroom to change clothes.

  “I called you because I care about her, Puller. I’m personally and professionally worried.”

  “I understand. Anything else?”

  Mike exhaled harshly. “Yeah. Don’t screw up, or I’ll kick your ass.”

  Jackson strode down the sterile hall, his gaze trained on Cammy. She sat hunched in a chair, staring fixedly at a poor copy of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. She looked like hell. His guts twisted into another complicated knot—their countless turn of the evening. His stomach felt sore from the turmoil. She didn’t look up when he reached her. He set the thermos of coffee on the plastic table, then eased into the chair beside her. “Hi.”

  She met his gaze. Sort of. There was a hollowness in her expression he didn’t like. “How did you get in here?”

  “Mike.” He studied her carefully. “You okay?”

  “He shouldn’t have called you.”

  “I shouldn’t have left you.”

  “I told you to.”

  He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have left.”

  “I never would have signed you in.”

  He reached for her hand. It felt cold. He rubbed it between both of his. “I won’t make this mistake again.”

  “Jackson—”

  He shook his head to interrupt her. “It doesn’t matter now. I’m here. How is she?”

  As if on cue, an angry scream sounded from the room across the hall. Cammy’s mouth twitched into a sad smile. “Crazy as a loon.”

  “Physically?” he prompted.

  “Who knows? Her heartbeat’s irregular. And she’s lapsed into unconsciousness a couple of times. She’s not speaking to me.” The screaming turned to a howling wail that brought an orderly down the hall. The young man gave Cammy an apologetic look as he hurried into the room.

  “Do you want to go in?” Jackson asked.

  She shook her head. “It won’t help right now—not until she’s calmer. She’ll get angry if she sees me.”

  He waited. The pain in Cammy’s eyes threatened to undo him. Nothing in his entire worldly existence, he realized, had prepared him for this moment. There was a cauldron of emotion in her that both confused and frustrated him.

  And it hurt him, he realized.

  At the lacerated look in her eyes, the feelings he had locked away were ruthlessl
y pushing themselves through the frozen barricades in his heart.

  Wanting to offer her something, anything that might ease that rawness, he pressed her hand to his lips. “Please, tell me,” he said, his voice a low whisper. “Just tell me.”

  For a moment, he thought she’d refuse. Then he felt the reserve flow out of her as she leaned against his shoulder. He almost drowned in relief. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head as he drew her into his embrace. “There’s nothing you can tell me,” he assured her, “that I don’t want to listen to.”

  “You’re the first guy I ever met who wanted to talk about his feelings.”

  He managed to choke a laugh past the knot in his throat. “Don’t give me too much credit. I want to talk about your feelings. Not mine.”

  She exhaled a slow breath. “Still, I—” she seemed to catch herself. With a brief shake of her head, she gave him an apologetic look. “Sorry. Old habits die hard.”

  “You’re going to have to learn that I’m not easily distracted.”

  “I’m beginning to get the picture that I may have finally met my verbal match.”

  He offered her a lopsided grin. “I’ve been in training my entire life just for you.”

  “It obviously worked.”

  “Does this mean you’re going to talk to me now?”

  Another wail carried through the door. She flinched, but didn’t take her gaze from his. “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “You can’t say later that I didn’t warn you.”

  “I won’t.”

  He watched her waver in indecision while he silently willed her to trust him. He’d almost given up hope when she finally said, “I’ve always wondered why our society thinks insanity is funny.” She removed her glasses so she could press her face to his chest. “Have you noticed that?”

  “Tell me.” He threaded a hand through her hair.

  “Movies and books, television, it’s everywhere. People think insanity is some kind of naive state of bliss where the mind allows its owner to take time off from the pressures of life.” The breath she exhaled sounded bone-weary. “I didn’t want you to see this.”

  “It’s all right.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I feel—ashamed.”

  “Honey—”

  “No.” She placed a hand on his chest. “Not about this, not about what it’s like. I feel ashamed that I didn’t want you to know. It makes me feel small. It’s not her fault.”

  He studied her for a moment. “It isn’t your fault, either.”

  Surprise registered in her gaze. He captured the expression and clung to it. “What?”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I know that. I have a fistful of degrees that say—”

  Jackson pressed his hand to her mouth. “You don’t have to convince me. I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me that about Leo, either. Remember?”

  “But, Jackson—”

  “I just wanted to make sure you know that I know. It’s not your fault, Cam. I’d never think it was your fault.”

  She blinked several times and simply stared at him. “No one ever said that to me before.”

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t think . . . it shouldn’t make that much of a difference.”

  He felt pleased. His anxiety began to fade as he watched her wrestle with the admission. She was coming back to him. “I’m glad I was here to say it.”

  “I am, too.” She sounded shocked.

  He found his first smile of the evening. “Do you have to sound so surprised?”

  “This is a little new to me.”

  “You’ve never been through this with anyone else, have you?”

  “Only my father.”

  “Who wasn’t exactly the Rock of Gibraltar.”

  “He couldn’t handle it.”

  “How old were you? The first time?”

  “Thirteen.”

  He swore. “Lord, Cam.”

  She laid her hand on his face. “It’s part of what makes me who I am. I wouldn’t be me without this.” With a wave of her hand, she indicated her mother’s room. “She has these lapses where she’s just completely unreachable. Clinically, we call it severe delusional schizophrenia. It’s like a demon overtakes her, and she just can’t control herself.”

  “Does she get violent?”

  “Not really.”

  “Never?”

  “She breaks things sometimes.”

  He released the breath he’d been holding. He wasn’t ready for the mental image of Cammy suffering physical abuse. “Has she ever hurt herself?”

  “Yes. She attempted suicide twice before I finally agreed to admit her here. She needs constant supervision.”

  “What did you have to go through to admit her?”

  “Hearings. Competency exams. It’s not easy. Too many people try to take advantage of the system. There are several safeguards built in.”

  “It was hard on you.” He didn’t have to ask.

  “I didn’t want to do it. No one wants to lock up their parents, even for the best reasons. The fact that she wasn’t consistently mentally incompetent made it worse. She’d have long periods of sanity where the bitterness between us escalated. She knew what I was doing, and she hated it.”

  “There were no other choices, were there?”

  “I tried everything. I hired nurses. I worked more and more hours at home. I enrolled her in adult day care programs. But her mind continued to deteriorate until she reached the point where I couldn’t leave her alone anymore.” She rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. “Generally, she seems fairly content here. She’s bitter, but she always has been. Depression tends to exaggerate destructive personality traits and eliminate positive ones.”

  He tilted his head toward the door. “How often does this happen?”

  “It’s happening more frequently.” Her eyes drifted shut for long seconds. “Unfortunately, psychiatric research hasn’t made many strides in the past several years. We still don’t know much about the links between physiological disorders and mental disorders. Several studies have dealt extensively with depression in the elderly, but the subjects are generally well into their eighties or nineties. We don’t know much about the disease in younger patients.”

  “How old is your mother?”

  “She’ll be sixty-two in October. Physiologically, her body has the symptoms of a ninety-year-old.”

  He absorbed that. “You don’t expect her to live long.” His voice was just above a whisper.

  “The life expectancy for the chronically mentally ill is very low. A lot of doctors believe that as their mind decays, they lose their will to live. Something in their subconscious seems to give up. From the point of diagnosis, they generally don’t live more than three or four years. Many die within the first eighteen months.” She paused. “My mother has been here permanently for seven years.”

  He waited. Long seconds ticked by. Her fingers fluttered over his shirtsleeve in an erratic rhythm. “Cammy?” he finally prompted.

  She met his gaze. “There are times when I wish it was over. For her, and for me.”

  He sensed exactly how much she’d had to trust him to admit that. From what she’d told him about her childhood, he knew she’d spent a lifetime fearing the unreasonable expectations of a demanding father and irrational mother. She didn’t like to disappoint people, but she’d trusted him enough to believe her admission wouldn’t shock him. His hand visibly trembled when he lifted it to her face. Tracing the curve of her cheek with the pads of his fingers, he gently smoothed the lines of worry near her eyes. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  She didn’t pretend not to understand. “I’m sorry it’s all so complicated.”

  “No apology necessary.” He felt the moment slide away as her expression changed to resignation.

  “You’re probably wishing by now that you’d picked someone normal to get involved with.”

  �
�Honey—” He nudged her chin up with his thumb. “I’m so damned pleased that I finally got you to say that that I’m thinking of sending Chris Harris and Mike Costas each a case of bourbon for their trouble.”

  “It doesn’t count. I’m under duress.”

  “It counts. I’ve learned that about you. Every word counts.”

  Before she could respond, the orderly emerged from her mother’s room to give Cammy a grim look. “She’s sedated,” he announced. “She should sleep through the night, now.”

  “Thanks,” Cammy told him.

  “Dr. Glynn, you really don’t need to stay. There’s nothing you’ll be able to do until morning.”

  “I know.”

  The young man watched her for several seconds, then shrugged. “Dr. Philpott said to assure you that it’s all right if you leave.”

  “He told me.”

  His gaze flicked to Jackson. “I’m supposed to make sure all unauthorized personnel are off the floor by midnight.” He paused. “It’s after one-thirty.”

  Jackson tightened his arm around Cammy’s shoulders. “I’m here as long as Dr. Glynn wants to stay.”

  “I don’t think—”

  Cammy interrupted him. “It’s all right, Rocko. We’re leaving soon.”

  Jackson raised his eyebrows. “Cammy—”

  Rocko looked relieved. “Thanks, Dr. Glynn.”

  “You have my pager number?”

  “On record. You know we’ll call you if there’s any change.”

  She nodded. “All right. We’ll go.”

  “We don’t have to,” Jackson assured her.

  She slipped her glasses back on. “I want to.” She glanced at the door. “I’ve done everything I can.”

  He felt her emotional fatigue as she walked with him to his car. She didn’t even balk when he informed her that he’d be taking her home. That was his first clue. Whatever was going on in her head, he sensed that there was far more to this incident than met the eye. Cammy was drifting, somewhere on some foreign sea of turmoil where he couldn’t reach her. Unsettled and anxious, he drove through the city in silence.

  By the time they reached her apartment, she’d grown so still that he thought she might be sleeping. She stirred, though, when he turned into a parking spot. “Thank you for bringing me home.” She dug into her purse for her keys. “I could have taken a cab.”

  With an exasperated sigh, he pulled the keys from her still-cold fingers. “Who ever convinced you that all of life’s battles have to be fought in solitude?”