“Can’t,” I puffed, my chest heaving. “Need to catch my breath.”
“One more,” he urged as the band started playing. “Come on. It’s a slow one.”
I took a big breath. “Okay. One more.”
Luke led me to the middle of the floor and laid his hand flat on my back. I rested my fingertips on his shoulder and looked into his face, watching for his silent countdown, three small and steady nods, before stepping off.
A few measures in, the keyboardist put a muted trumpet to his lips, blowing a smoky, bluesy twilight tune. The bass player plucked out a pulsing harmony, as steady as a beating heart, and the drummer circled the snare with a metallic brush, making a scratching sound that spoke of closing time. The music was slow, almost too slow. Luke shortened the length of his stride and the distance between us. Steps became a shuffle. The soles of my shoes brushed the floor, soft as a whisper.
We moved in unison, drawing closer, meeting in the middle, our bodies touching. My head turned instinctively, feeling suddenly heavy, the way it does just before sleep, sinking lower, and lower, until my cheek rested on Luke’s shoulder.
The music was sweet in my ears. I felt so relaxed and good. I closed my eyes. If not for the steady boundaries of Luke’s arms holding me close, I might have melted. I was aware of his breathing and my own, of the warm imprint of his hands between my shoulders and the curving swell where my waist became my hip.
I could stay here forever. Just like this. Forever.
And then I remembered.
My eyes opened, my head lifted. I was suddenly aware of my left hand and the indentation at the base of my finger, the place where my ring should have been.
“I have to go.”
“Now?” Luke asked, his eyes opened too. “Why?”
“I just do. I’m sorry, Luke. I can’t . . .”
I stepped backward, disentangling myself from his arms, regaining my grip on reality. I walked to the table and he followed me, asking questions that I chose not to answer, saying only what I’d said before, that I was sorry, that I had to go.
And I did. I had to.
I grabbed my purse and headed for the door, my stride so long and rapid that I was almost running. He followed me again but gave up after a few paces, falling away, letting me go. It was a relief. I got in the car and drove off, but not to my condo. There was someplace else I needed to be.
Twice in one day, I was late.
Chapter 7
Grace
The lobby was deserted and the reception desk unmanned, but I didn’t need directions. I knew the way—left from the lobby, right at the corridor, to the end of the hall. A woman with brown hair striped gray at the part looked up from her desk.
I forced a smile. “Hi, Alicia. How’s he doing?”
“Hi, Grace. I didn’t think you were coming. I just checked on him. He’s fine.”
Fine means the same. The same as yesterday, and last week, and last month, and last year. The same, not better. Better was not going to happen. Now there were only two possibilities—the same and worse.
“Well . . . I’ll get out of your hair. I’m just going to stay for a few minutes.”
“Are you okay?”
She frowned, examining my face. Alicia knows me pretty well by now.
“Busy. You know how it is. But I’m fine,” I said.
I was fine. I was the same. Or would be. I’d had a momentary lapse in judgment. It wouldn’t happen again. I wouldn’t let it.
I tiptoed into Jamie’s room, thinking he might be asleep, and felt an involuntary jolt run through my body, the kind of sensation you get from walking across thick carpeting in socks and then touching something metallic—a short, sharp shock that makes your muscles twitch and your breath catch.
Even after all that time, coming up on two years, when I saw my once-oak-strong husband, the man with deep roots, lying in bed, shrunken and dependent on the ministrations of nurses to eat, control his bowels, and simply survive, I felt that same inward gasp. Sometimes it was hard to make myself believe the body in the bed truly belonged to my Jamie.
He was awake, looking toward the doorway as if he’d been waiting for me. Maybe he was. I couldn’t tell. That was the worst part of all of this. Though his eyes looked the same as they always had, deep steely blue, fringed with thick bristles of shoe-polish-black lashes, there was no way for me to tell what he thought or didn’t think. Or if he could think at all. The doctors said no. At times like this, I wasn’t so sure.
I stood next to his bed, but his gaze remained fixed on the open doorway. I brushed hair from his face. Still, he watched the door. Who was he waiting for?
“You need a trim,” I said. “I can bring the scissors next time I come.”
He didn’t respond. I didn’t expect him to. That didn’t stop me from talking.
When Jamie was still in the coma, he never opened his eyes or responded in any way. For a time he couldn’t even breathe on his own. The medical staff urged me to talk to him anyway. They said it might help him recover, so I did, telling him about the little inanities of my day—how beautiful the trees were when autumn arrived, turning orange, red, and gold; how they’d raised the cable prices so I canceled the service; how I’d met Nan and Monica, adopted Maisie, found a new recipe for chili, or a sweater on sale at Macy’s; how I’d decided to stitch two dozen cardinal Christmas ornaments, made from red felt and embroidered with gold and black thread, to give to the nurses. Little things, ordinary things, the daily details of living life and passing the time, waiting for something to happen, good or bad. Stupid things
