“John,” she whined in frustration, “you don’t like me.”
“I don’t want to like you. There’s a difference.”
“If you don’t want to like me, what are you doing making a date with me?”
“Trying to find out why I like you, even if I don’t want to. That was what I wanted to talk about in the first place on Saturday morning, before we got sidetracked.”
Nina saw a complicated discussion on the horizon, but she was in no more of a mood for it than she was for a sixteen-ounce steak. Her stomach was feeling weird, which was how it had been feeling on and off for too long. She would see a doctor if she had the time, but she didn’t have the time. Work came first. Everything else would have to wait.
“Can we save this for another time, John?”
“Sure, if you can tell me when.”
“I don’t know when. If you call tomorrow, I’ll check—”
“I call and you’re out, and you don’t return my calls.”
“I’ll return your call this time,” she said earnestly. She really wanted to go upstairs and lie down. “Better still, I’ll call you.” She was ready to promise almost anything to get him to leave. Feeling worse by the minute, she was using every bit of her strength not to let it show.
Apparently she succeeded, because he looked calmer. “Will you?”
She nodded. “First thing tomorrow, once I get into the office. I’ll call and we’ll arrange a time. Okay?”
He thought about it for a minute, then nodded. “I’ll be waiting.”
His eyes fell to her mouth, and for a minute she thought he was going to kiss her before he left. One part of her wanted that more than anything; his kiss was a balm, able to make her feel good. Then again, when his kiss was over and done she always felt worse, and she didn’t need that now. She was feeling awful enough without any help from John.
For whatever his reasons, he took a step back, turned and slowly went down the walk to his car. Taking only distracted pleasure from his tight-hipped walk, Nina closed the door and leaned against it for a minute before making her way upstairs.
Despite the earliness of the hour, she went right to bed. She was hurting too much to do anything else. It occurred to her that maybe people were right and she did need more sleep, and though, given her druthers, she’d rather be working, she figured she’d give it a try.
* * *
Sleep came sporadically. She dozed, only to awaken to a knotting in her stomach a few minutes later. After tossing and turning, she dozed again, but less than an hour later she was awake. Her stomach was feeling worse, aching almost steadily. Not one to take pills, she sipped water, then a little ginger ale, but nothing seemed to help. After a while, she slept, only to wake up this time in a sweat with the realization that the ache in her stomach had become a pain.
She began to grow frightened. She didn’t have time to be sick. She couldn’t afford to be sick. Desperately seeking an explanation for what was happening, she thought back on anything she had eaten that might have upset her, but what little she’d had in the past few days had been light and bland. Sipping more ginger ale, she lay down again, but the pain grew worse. Try as she might, no amount of rearranging of her body seemed to ease it.
She began to wish she had seen a doctor. She began to wonder if she should now. But other than her gynecologist, she didn’t have one, hadn’t ever needed one. Besides, it was after eleven. She couldn’t be calling a doctor now. If worse came to worst, first thing in the morning she could make some calls and get a name.
That decided, she managed to sleep for a bit, only to rouse with a sharp cry as an acute pain suddenly tore through her insides. Clutching her stomach, she struggled to sit up, but she couldn’t seem to catch her breath.
Fear gave way to terror. Something was very, very wrong. She didn’t know what it was, didn’t know what to do about it. Worse, she didn’t think she would have been able to do anything if she did know what to do. She couldn’t stand up straight. She could barely move.
Fighting panic, she picked up the phone by her bed, and with shaky fingers, punched out John’s number. The phone rang twice before it was answered, but she didn’t hear a voice.
“John?” she cried feebly. “Are you there, John?”
After a minute, she heard a groggy, “Nina?”
“Something’s wrong,” she cried in short, staggered bursts. “Awful pain. I don’t know what to do.”
His voice came stronger, all grogginess gone. “Where’s the pain?”
“My stomach. I wanted to wait. But it’s getting worse. I’ve never had this before.”
“Is it cramps?”
“No. Pain. Sharp pain.” She was bent in two trying to contain it.
“Which side?”
“I don’t know. All over. No, more on the right.”
He spoke firmly, exuding a gentle command. “Listen, babe, I’m gonna run next door for a sitter—”
“It’s two in the morning. You can’t—”
“Can you make it down to the front door?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
“I want you to go there, unlock the door and wait for me. I won’t be more than ten minutes.”
“Oh, God, John, I’m sorry—”
“Go downstairs and wait.”
“Okay.” Trembling, she hung up the phone. Then, fearful that if the pain got worse she wouldn’t make it, she stumbled out of bed and headed for the door. She stopped against the doorjamb, doubled over in pain, caught her breath, then stumbled on. Reaching the stairs, she sat on the top step and, one by one, eased herself down. She barely had time to unlatch the door at the bottom before she crumpled back onto the lowest step, in excruciating pain.
She must have passed out, because the next thing she knew, John was crouching down by her side. “Nina? Nina.”
His hand was cool against the burning on her forehead, her cheek, her neck, but it was the worry in his voice that reached her. She forced her eyes open. “I’m okay,” she said, but even her voice was far away. Her insides were on fire, hurting like hell. With an anguished moan, she closed her eyes against the pain.
“You’ll be fine,” John said as he lifted her. The words came through a fog, the same way as the feel of his arms did. What was happening inside her body seemed to be putting distance between herself and the world. But trust was an intuitive thing. She trusted John. For that reason, as soon as she was in his arms, as soon as she felt him start to carry her out to his car, she yielded her well-being to him and turned her own focus to fighting the intense pain that was eating her alive.
* * *
Wakefulness came to Nina in fits and snatches over the course of the next few days. She seemed able to grasp at consciousness only briefly, enough to find out what had happened and ease the fear in her mind before yielding to the effects of anesthesia, painkillers and illness. At times when she woke up, there were doctors with her, poking and prodding, asking her questions that she had barely the strength to answer. At times there were nurses bathing her, shifting her, checking the fluid that ran from bottles, down thin tubes, into her veins.
At times John was there. Of all the faces she saw in her daze, his was the clearest. Of all the things she remembered hearing, his words were the ones that registered.
“You had a ruptured appendix,” he told her during one of those first bouts with wakefulness.
“Ruptured?” she whispered, dry mouthed and groggy.
He was sitting close by the side of the bed and had her free hand in both of his, pressed to his throat. “But it’s okay now. You’ll be just fine.”
Another time, when she awoke to find him perched on the side of the bed by her hip, she asked in a croak, “What did they do?”
He smiled crookedly. “Took out your appendix. Cleaned up the mess in there. Sewed you back up.”
Moving her hand to her stomach, she felt what seemed like mountains of bandages. “So much stuff here.”
“It’ll co
me off soon. How do you feel?”
“Hot.”
“That’s the fever. They’re giving you antibiotics. It should help pretty soon. Are your hurting?”
“A little. And tired.”
Brushing her cheek with the back of his hand, he said, “Then sleep.”
Given the quiet command and the warm assurance of his body close by, she did, and those hours of sleep were the best. When she awoke alone, there was an emptiness along with the pain and the heat, and she sought sleep again as an escape. Aloneness was bleak, strangely frightening. Given that she’d spent so much of her life alone, that would have mystified her if she’d been in any condition to analyze it. But she wasn’t.
For nearly three days, she was in a limbo of fever and pain. Slowly, on the morning of the fourth, she began to emerge from it. The doctors were the first to visit, in the course of making their rounds. Then the nurses came in to do their thing. And then John.
She was awake this time when he appeared at the door. His face brightened when he saw that her eyes were open.
“Hey,” he said, coming inside, “you’re up.”
“Finally.” Her voice was still dry, weak and hoarse, and she was feeling more feeble than that, but the sight of him pleased her.
“You look better.”
“I look awful.”
“You’ve been up looking at yourself in the mirror?” he teased.
But she nodded. “They made me get out of bed.”
“That’s great,” he said with enthusiasm, then grew more cautious. “How was it?”
“Terrible. I can’t stand up straight.”
“That’ll come.”
“I got dizzy. I nearly passed out, and that was just between the bed and the bathroom. It’s discouraging.”
“Were you expecting to get out of bed and dance a jig?”
“No, but I thought I’d be able to walk, at least. I mean, I’ve been lying here doing nothing for three full days—”
“Doing nothing?” His brows went up for an instant. When they came down, his expression was dark. “Babe, you were fighting for your life. It was touch and go for a while there. Didn’t they tell you that?”
“Doctors exaggerate things.”
“Not this time,” John said, and his face underscored the words. “You’ve been really sick, Nina. They wanted to know if there were any close relatives who should be notified.”
That sobered her a bit. “What did you tell them?”
“What Lee told me.”
“Lee?”
“I called your office Thursday morning to let them know you wouldn’t be in, and she was the one who called back. She’s been in a couple of times, but you’ve been asleep.” He settled gently on the side of the bed and said in a quiet, compassionate voice, “She told me about your mother. I’m sorry, Nina. I didn’t know she was so sick.”
Nina closed her eyes. “She’s been sick for a long time.”
“That’s what Lee said.”
He grew quiet, giving Nina the opportunity to go on, but she wasn’t up for that. During the past few days, on those occasions when she’d woken up alone, she had thought about her mother more than she might have expected. She was feeling very strange about some of the thoughts she’d had, particularly now, knowing how sick she had been herself.
“Want to sleep?” John whispered.
She shook her head and whispered back, “I’m okay,” but she didn’t open her eyes.
He took her hand. “You can sleep if you want. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“You’ve been here a lot.”
“Whenever I could.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“This is important.”
“But you have other things—”
“I have backup. Right now, this is where I want to be.”
At the words, she felt a slow knot form in her throat. Turning her head away, she murmured, “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“Being a pain in the butt. You’ve got more important things to do than sit here with me. You should be home with J.J.”
“J.J.’s with a sitter. He’s fine.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “He’s with a sitter too much lately, and all because of me. First I drag you out in the middle of the night, then you feel you have to stay here—”
He touched her lips, stilling her words. “Thank God you did drag me out in the middle of the night. If you’d waited for morning, it might have been too late. And as for my staying here, I don’t have to. I want to. Think of me as your warden. I’m gonna make sure you don’t do too much too fast.”
Her warden. She didn’t know whether he was that or something else, but she did know that he was special. Lee might have stopped by to visit, but she’d left. Her other friends had sent cards and flowers, even called. But John had come. Time and again, he’d come. And stayed.
Feeling suddenly weepy, she tried to turn over onto her side, but the attempt brought a wince. John’s hands were there, then, helping her, propping pillows behind her to give her support. “Okay, now?” he asked, leaning over her shoulder.
She nodded. Seconds later, she felt him brush at the tears escaping from the corners of her eyes.
“Ah, Nina,” he whispered.
“I’m okay,” she whispered back. “I’ll just rest for a while.” Taking his hand from her cheek, she tucked it inside hers, between her breasts. “Rest for just a little while,” she murmured, and let herself go to sleep.
John was there when she woke up, then again later that night, then the next morning. He helped her out of bed and into the bathroom, then back into bed. He sat close beside her when she ate Jell-O, then later, custard, then later, a soft-boiled egg. He left for a little while at the end of the day but was back after he’d put J.J. to bed, then sat with her until after eleven.
By the Tuesday morning, her sixth in the hospital, she was finally feeling better. The intravenous solutions had been replaced by oral antibiotics, her stitches by tape. She was still sleeping on and off through the day, but she was beginning to think about work more and more. There was so much she wanted to do. Each day she lazed around in the hospital was another day wasted.
“When can I go home?” she asked the doctor after he checked the incision and her chart and appeared pleased with both.
“Another two or three days.”
“Two or three?” That surprised her. “But I’m fine now. I’m up and around. The worst of the pain is gone, and without any medication for it.” One of the first things she’d done was refuse painkillers. She hated being doped up.
“But there’s still the danger of infection,” the doctor pointed out. “Your body’s suffered a trauma. You need to be monitored for that. And you need rest.”
“I can get rest at home.”
“But will you?” He was middle-aged, with a pleasant manner, a gentle sense of humor and particularly expressive eyes. Those eyes were now filled with an I-know-your-type look, for which she had only herself to blame. She had told him about her work. In the telling, some of her compulsion must have come through. “You live alone. There’ll be no one to keep tabs on how much you do or don’t do.”
“I’m a big girl. I can keep tabs on myself.”
“But will you?”
“I’ll rest.”
“With a pen in one hand and the phone at your ear?” he chided. “No, I’d rather you stay here a little longer.”
“But there’s a shortage of beds,” she argued, having read that time and again in the paper.
“Not for sick people, there isn’t.”
“I’m not sick.”
“You were. More sick than some. And it didn’t help that you were run-down.” He looked about to scold her for that. Instead, he simply said, “I’m not sure I can trust that you’ll rest at home.”
Though she was beginning to tire, Nina wasn’t giving up the fight. “I’ll rest better there than here. Sleeping was fine here when I was hal
f out of it, but now I wake up with every little noise in the hall, and then you guys come at me at six in the morning—”
“You’re still weak, Nina. You need watching.”
A low voice came from the door. “What if I were to watch her?”
Nina turned her head to find John there, and felt a little more peaceful than she had moments before. He did that to her, had a way of making her feel safe. It had to do with his confidence, she guessed, and that air of quiet command. He would argue with the doctor. He knew how much better she was feeling.
Responding to his question, the doctor said, “Can you do that?”
“If she’s at my house, I can.”
His house? But that wasn’t what Nina had in mind. Not at all. “Uh, wait a minute, John. That would be tough.”
“Why so?” he asked, approaching the bed. “I have a perfectly good guest room with a perfectly good bed. You can sleep in it just as well as you can sleep in your own bed, and there wouldn’t be the hospital interruptions.”
There wouldn’t be a telephone, either, Nina knew. Nor would she feel comfortable having people stop by from the office with updates on work. Nor would she be able to call clients. John would never stand for that.
“I could make sure you eat,” he went on, “and I’d be able to see if you were worse and get you back here in time.” His gaze shifted to the doctor. “Would you let her leave if she stayed with me?”
The doctor didn’t have to give it a second thought. “Sure.”
His easy agreement infuriated Nina. “That’s ridiculous,” she said, but more quietly. She was beginning to fade and was appalled by it. Before she totally lost her strength, she said to John, “What about J.J.?”
“What about him?”
“He’d see me.”
John considered that. “Yes.”
“But you don’t want that.”
“Uh, listen,” the doctor interrupted, “this is sounding like a private discussion.” To John, he said, “If you want her, she’s yours, but not until this afternoon. I want to do a final blood workup before I discharge her. Why don’t you leave word at the desk when you decide what to do. I’ll be on the floor for most of the morning.”
The Dream Comes True Page 11