Nina hadn’t eaten much in the past week. Her stomach was just getting back to normal. Sweaty jelly beans weren’t the kind of food that the doctor would have necessarily recommended. But she grinned at J.J., put on an honored look and, one by one, telling him how good each was with the roll of her eyes, ate the beans.
“Dee-licious,” she said with a final eye roll. Then she settled into a smile and gave him a silent but exaggerated, “Thank you.”
With a grin, he retrieved the band from where it had been safely resting and ran from the room again. She half expected him to be back seconds later with something else, but he wasn’t, and it was just as well. She was feeling tired again.
Gingerly rolling over, she pulled the sheet up to her chest, closed her eyes and slept. This time when she awoke, the room was bathed in the early-evening sun and the eyes she looked into were John’s.
“Hi, there,” he said. He was sitting on the side of the bed. She wondered how long he’d been there.
“Hi.”
“Sleep well?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Feeling better?”
“For now.” Wryly she added, “In five minutes, I’ll be tired again.”
“That’ll pass.”
“I hope so.”
“Are you hungry?”
“No. I had a snack last time I was up. Five jelly beans.”
“So I was told.”
“He’s sweet, John. So sweet.”
“I think so.”
“Does he look like his mom?” Other than the hair, she didn’t see the resemblance to John, though that could well have been due to the discrepancy in size and age.
John thought about it for a minute, finally saying, “It’s hard for me to tell. When I see J.J., I see J.J. He has a way about him that’s all his own, maybe because of the problems, I don’t know. But I’ve never done much comparing of him either to other children or to adults.”
“He’s bright and quick. He knew just what I was saying.”
“About the bracelet?”
“He told you?”
“Showed me. Made me tape it together so he could wear it.” His eyes rose and went past her. “Speak of the devil.” He gestured with his hand and spoke with the same kind of exaggerated mouth movements that Nina had used. “Come on in.”
Too content lying where she was to turn, Nina asked, “How good is he at that?”
“At lipreading? He gets short things, simple things, far more than a normal four-year-old would get but far less than he will in a year or two or three.” Scooping the boy onto his lap, he said, “J.J., this is Nina.” Then he snickered. “It’d help, of course, if he were looking at my lips, but he’s too busy looking at you. Not that I blame him,” he added under his breath.
Nina gave the child the same kind of small wave that she’d given him before. With his smaller hand—circled now with the taped plastic band—he returned it. Then she looked at his mouth, which was surrounded by a faint orange ring. “Is that spaghetti sauce I see?” She ran her finger around her lips.
Carefully, J.J. put the tips of his baby fingers together and drew them apart with the faintest of spiraling motions. John made a different motion, bringing one hand down from his mouth, palm up, into the other. Tipping his head back, J.J. gave him a grin.
For Nina’s benefit, John explained. “He signed ‘spaghetti.’” He repeated the motion J.J. had made, doing it more neatly so that she could see. “I praised him back in sign.”
Nina was impressed. “Does he sign a lot?”
“About as much as he reads lips. We work on both with the therapists, and I reinforce it at home. Spaghetti’s one of his favorite things. He eats it a lot, so he has the sign down pat.” He paused, leaned over, planted a kiss on his son’s forehead. “Overall, he does damn well at it, for a four-year-old.”
Nina felt a touch of envy for the love passing from father to son. Then she thought of something else and felt a shaft of timidity. “Does he get frustrated with people who don’t sign?”
“He gets frustrated when he wants something and can’t make himself known, but every kid does that. As far as signing goes, he only gets frustrated when someone who doesn’t sign gets frustrated with him.”
“Do his sitters sign?”
“A little. The girls do it more than the grown-ups. They think it’s a game.” Snorting, he nuzzled the top of J.J.’s head. “They wouldn’t think it was such fun if it was their only means of communication.” Leaning sideways, he signed something to J.J., who promptly nodded. In the next instant, John lowered him to the floor and stood. “He’s going to help me bring in your supper.”
Nina pushed herself up on an elbow. “John, I can go into the kitchen.”
“Not tonight.”
“I can do it,” she insisted. With her mind clear and her body newly rested, she was uncomfortable in the role of the helpless patient.
“Why should you try, when I can bring it in here?”
“Because you shouldn’t be waiting on me.”
“Yes, I should. That was the whole point in your coming here. It was the only condition the doctor let you out.”
“But I don’t want—”
“Tough,” he cut in with uncharacteristic sharpness. “It’s done.” Following J.J.’s lead, he left the room.
Nina didn’t resume the fight when he returned with a dinner tray. She only made it through half of the spaghetti and sauce he’d given her, and even less of the salad, before she felt too tired to go on. “I’ll have more later,” she said, putting her head onto the pillow as soon as he removed the tray. To her chagrin, she fell asleep.
She awoke once not long after that to find J.J. in pajamas, playing on the floor with a brightly colored plastic tow truck and two matching cars. His small head, hair clean and damp, was bent in concentration, and from time to time a low, flat sound came from his throat, clearly an imitation of the truck’s roar. She wondered if he ever heard the real thing, or simply felt the vibrations. She wondered if he heard anything at all. He wasn’t wearing his hearing aids. She wondered what a totally silent world might be like.
Loath to disturb him, she simply watched for a short time until her eyes felt heavy again. Then, bidding him a silent good-night, she went back to sleep.
* * *
When she awoke at eleven, John was sitting in the nearby chair, reading a book. After seeing her to the bathroom and back, he made her a frothy milk shake that she was sure he’d slipped an egg or two into, but she didn’t complain. It was cool and tasty, smooth going down. Feeling comfortably full, she went back to sleep.
* * *
When she awoke the next morning, J.J. was on the floor again, this time perched on his heels, reading a book of his own. From what Nina could see, it contained far more pictures than words, but he turned the pages in order and seemed engrossed in what he saw.
She rolled over and stretched, but he couldn’t hear the rustle of the sheets. So she ruffled his hair. At that he looked up. Seeing her awake he jumped up and, leaving the book on the floor, ran for John.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed when he arrived. “Did you have him standing guard?” she teased.
The only answer she got was a shrug. His gaze was fixed on her face. “How did you sleep?”
“Soundly. It’s peaceful here.”
He continued to study her, finally deciding, “You look better.”
“It’s about time.”
“Want some breakfast?”
For the first time since she’d taken sick, she said. “Just a little.” But “just a little,” as interpreted by John, turned out to be nearly as large a breakfast as Ronnie’s Special at the Easy Over. She came nowhere near finishing. “You’re trying to fatten me up,” she complained. “Much more of this and my clothes won’t fit.”
“You’re clothes don’t fit now. You’ve lost weight.”
She guessed it was true, though her stomach still felt puffy near the incision. “Maybe I co
uld get dressed today and see.”
But John shook his head. “Tomorrow.”
Figuring that he was taking his orders from the doctor, she didn’t argue. But she wasn’t beyond bargaining a little. “How about the newspaper, then? I haven’t seen one in a week.”
He considered that for a minute, then used the tip of his sneaker to gently nudge J.J., who had returned to his book. A brief sign sent the boy scurrying off.
Nina repeated the sign, a double snapping of the heels of her hands with her fingers aimed in opposite directions. “Newspaper?”
“That’s right.”
She filed the information. “How do you say ‘thank you’?”
John mouthed the words.
“In sign,” she prompted dryly, and repeated the sign when he showed it to her, then used it when J.J. ran back in, the proud bearer of the morning paper.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t as proud of herself when, barely halfway through the paper, she set it aside, slid down on the pillows and fell back to sleep.
* * *
The pattern repeated itself through all of Wednesday. She woke up feeling bright eyed, only to wither after a brief time. Fighting it seemed to do no good. Her body had a will of its own.
“Is this normal?” she asked John later that day. Back in bed, feeling as though she’d run a marathon rather than just taken a shower, she was discouraged.
“Perfectly normal,” he said, flanking her hips with his hands.
“But I wasn’t this tired in the hospital.”
“You were, but you didn’t think anything of it. Here, you keep thinking you should be up and around.”
“I should be.”
He shook his head in the slow way that was an answer in itself.
“I should be,” she insisted. “When I stop to think about the work I’m missing—”
“Lee is covering for you.”
“I know, but I should be doing it.”
He pulled back a little, and his look grew dark. “That’s exactly the kind of argument that nearly got you killed. If it hadn’t been for your compulsion to work, you’d have seen a doctor earlier and gotten by with a simple appendectomy. Instead, you let it go, so you ended up going through ten times more danger and pain. Stick inconvenience in there wherever you want. If you’re missing work, it’s your own fault.”
“But what about Crosslyn Rise?” she asked more meekly. She always felt bad when John raised his voice or spoke more quickly than usual, which was what he was doing then. “We’ve come so far with it, and it’s almost there. If we’re launching the marketing program with an open house on the Fourth—”
“That’s barely two weeks off, Nina,” he interrupted more calmly but with no less force. “You can’t hold it then. Put it off a month.”
“A month!”
He gave a slow nod. “Carter and Jessica have no problem with that.”
“You talked with them about my work?” Not wanting to sound annoyed after all he’d done, she spoke with care, but John must have sensed some of what she was thinking, because he came back firmly.
“It’s my work, too, and Carter’s and Jessica’s, and of course I talked to them. They’ve been worried about you. You’re part of the team.”
“Part of the team, that’s right, and I have no intention of letting down on my end. I can plan the open house, John. Right from this bed I can plan it. Assuming Christine gets the finishing touches done on the model condo, I can handle it. There’s nothing much to putting a few ads in the paper, sending around a few invitations, making a few phone calls to get interest humming.”
John turned sideways, looking back at her over a shoulder. “And what about standing on your feet for hours on end talking with lookers, not to mention giving tours of the grounds?”
“I can have other people do that.”
“Wait a month.”
“But the Fourth is a perfect weekend.”
“People go away on the Fourth. Wait a month.”
“People go away in August.”
“So wait until Labor Day.”
“Impossible.”
“Then the last week in July.”
“How about the weekend after the Fourth?”
“The last week.”
“The next to last week.” Wrapping her arms around her middle, she slid lower into the sheets. “And that’s as much as I’ll give.”
Silently he stared straight ahead while she studied his profile, trying to guess at his mood. She knew she irked him at times, particularly when it came to work, but she didn’t want him angry.
Anger wasn’t what she saw when he turned his head, but rather a trace of amusement. “I’m surprised you gave that much,” he mused. “I expected more of a fight.”
In another day and age, she might have said something clever, clicked her heels and walked out of the room, but she wasn’t up to any of that. “Believe it or not,” she said with a sigh, “I don’t love fighting even when I do feel good.”
“Which you don’t right now.”
“Weak, just weak. Damn it.”
Taking a deep breath, John straightened his arms on either side of her again. Looking deeply into her eyes, he said with exquisite gentleness, “Is it so awful to be weak once in a while?”
“I hate being weak,” she ground out, feeling that hatred in her very marrow.
“But once in a while? Not all the time, just once in a while?”
Nina shut her eyes against the flood of memories that his words brought back. Once in a while, that’s all, I’ll just see him once in a while. I can’t not see him at all. He’s too good to me for that. I need him, Nina. I do.
“Nina?”
Feeling a great wave of sadness, she opened her eyes to John. At first she didn’t think she had the strength to answer. Then she saw the concern—and question—in his eyes and knew that, given all he’d done for her, the least she could do was to tell him the truth.
Quietly, soberly, almost frailly, she said, “My mother used to ask me that, whether it was wrong to be weak once in a while. Her weakness was men. She loved being held by them and kept by them. She didn’t demand anything except that they give her enough to get by, and for years, that’s what she did. She got by. She got us by. We never had anything extra, and that was okay by me, except that she was never around, and that wasn’t okay, because I wanted her. When I was old enough to ask her to get a real job with regular hours, she said she couldn’t. So-and-so was too good to her. She couldn’t give him up. We used to fight about it, more when I got older and the so-and-sos kept changing. I’d tell her she was weak, and she’d say that was okay. Then I started seeing the bruises, and I’d tell her she didn’t have to stand for that, but she would. She’d take it over and over again. Then she started in with the pills—”
Nina swallowed hard and, with the motion, felt suddenly more tired than ever before. Wearily she turned her head to the side.
John touched her hair. “Were they painkillers?”
“All drugs are, in the broadest sense.”
“She moved from one to the next?”
“Right on up the scale.”
Gentle fingers brushed Nina’s scalp, soothing her, silently giving her strength. “Was it an overdose that finally did it?”
“Mmm-hmm. Not enough to kill, just to permanently disable.” Thoughts she’d had in the hospital came back to her, thoughts about illness and death, friends, relatives. In a shaky whisper, she said, “I should see her. She’s lying alone. I hated lying alone when I was sick. But she is, all the time. I should see her.”
“Do you often?”
She shook her head. “Too far away. Too much work.”
“Too many mixed feelings.”
She met his gaze. “How did you know?”
“It follows from things you’ve said. You wanted her there and she wasn’t. You asked her to change, and she wouldn’t. You’ve made your life the antithesis of what hers was.” He paused, his thumb tracing small
circles on her temple. “Were you around when it got bad with the drugs?”
“Yes. I was in school, and working.”
“Where was your father?”
Feeling the same old pain she’d lived with for years, she raised a single shoulder all the way to her ear. Slowly it slid back into place.
“Don’t know?”
She shook her head.
“Do you know who he is?”
After a pause, she shook her head again.
Silently John slipped his arms beneath her and brought her up into his embrace. She went limply at first, until the need he felt took her, too. Aloneness was a painful thing. Holding and being held by another person offset that pain. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she clutched at bunches of his shirt.
At first he said nothing, and that was fine. Nina was content to listen to his heartbeat, to let it lull her and offer a comfort of its own. As though she had unburdened herself of a secret that had been weighing her down for years, she grew increasingly relaxed and mellow.
His breath was warm against her hair. “Loving a man doesn’t have to be a weakness.”
“It’s not the loving that’s bad,” she breathed, “it’s the depending. Men meant everything to my mother. When none of them wanted her anymore, she was broken.”
“So you never want to depend on a man.”
“Mmm. Right.”
“You want to be self-sufficient.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She took in a deep breath, enjoying as much the feel of John as his scent. “I won’t let myself get in that bind. Not ever.”
Having said that, she felt better. She had warned John. She’d been as blunt as she could be. If he wanted to nurse her, that was fine. If he wanted to wait on her and play guardian, that was fine. She couldn’t deny that the coddling was nice, given that her health wasn’t yet up to snuff. But once she was well, she would be on her own again.
It was good that he understood that.
8
The following morning, while John and J.J. were at the therapist’s office, Lee came to visit. Wearing the sundress she’d worn home from the hospital—and having polished her nails, which made her feel greatly improved—Nina had progressed to sitting in the den. John didn’t know that yet. She planned to surprise him with her strength when he returned at noon.
The Dream Comes True Page 13