Commitments

by Barbara Delinsky

  “Soon? Will he get it soon?” She could envision one of the guards sauntering toward Derek in a day or two or three with a crumpled piece of paper in his hand. It bothered her to imagine him thinking, for even a minute, that she’d lost courage or given up on him or just plain forgotten.

  “He’ll get it.”

  “It’s very important—”

  “Ma’am, he’ll get it.”

  Hearing annoyance in that voice, she decided not to push her luck. Very quickly, she repeated her message, then hung up the phone and returned to Nicky’s room.

  Nurses came and went. Doctors stopped by, new ones with the new day to ask the same old questions. When had the seizure occurred? Had Nicky ever had one before? What had she done with him that day, where had she taken him, what had she given him to eat? With each repetition of the story, her guilt grew. She fought the feeling, but her defenses were down. Nicky’s seizure was somehow her fault; she’d done something wrong; she’d failed him again.

  By late afternoon, she was beginning to feel as though she should be the one hooked up to wires on the bed, not Nicky. When the image of J. B. Monroe materialized before her, she wondered if she’d truly lost it.

  J. B. was the last person she expected to see. He might have been the last person she would have wanted to see if the circumstances had been different; but when he walked through the door of Nicky’s room shortly before six, she wasn’t about to argue. She needed someone, and if her brother was the only one there, he’d have to do.

  At thirty-eight, J. B. looked like the California dreamer who’d never grown up. His hair was long and blond, his skin tanned. The round, metal-rimmed glasses that sat on his nose gave him the air of an aesthete, which his distracted expressions did nothing to deny. He wore his clothes as loosely as possible, as though anything beyond shorts—in this case a shapeless blazer, baggy shirt and pants and canvas shoes—were offensive to the flesh. He could pull it off and look chic largely because of his lanky frame and his height, which was well over six feet and had been inherited from his father. From his mother he’d inherited the aquiline features that made him a frightfully handsome cad.

  There was no mystery as to how he’d come by his writing skill. His oddness was another matter. Amanda and Gebhart were alternately thought to be unusual, unconventional and eccentric. No one had ever called them odd. Everyone called J. B. odd. He had the personality of a toad.

  Hands tucked in his pockets, he came to a halt beside Nicky’s bed. His gaze rode above it to the corner of the room in which Sabrina sat, and he chucked his chin her way.

  She would have run to him had he been the type, but for all his laid-back beauty, J. B. wasn’t a toucher. Sabrina knew that he’d kissed his wife on their wedding day because she’d seen it with her own eyes. She couldn’t recall, though, ever seeing a repetition of it or a hug for either Jenny or his daughters. Likewise, as a brother he had never been physically demonstrative.

  So she sighed his name, then asked, “How did you know?”

  “The maid.” He turned his attention to his sleeping nephew and stared emotionlessly for what seemed forever. He was still staring at the child when he said, “I flew in with a manuscript. Thought we’d celebrate.”

  “Oh J. B.”

  “My timing sucks.”

  “Yeah.”

  He crinkled up his nose, but only in an attempt to boost his glasses higher. No sooner had his features settled back into place when he tuned out. His expression went blank. He didn’t move. He studied Nicky in a deep and profound silence.

  Eventually he returned to the world with a quick breath and said, “He looks like Mom.”

  “And you.”

  He thought about that for a long minute that ran into three, finally nodding. After another minute he said, “Convulsions? The kid’s a walking disaster.”

  “He doesn’t walk.”

  J. B.’s shrug said, “Same difference.” After a time, his voice added, “So, what is it now?”

  The invitation was all Sabrina needed. She’d had no one to talk with during the long hours, and she desperately needed to share the grief. “They suspect he has a mild form of epilepsy. Can you believe it, J. B.?” She hugged her knees to her chest, letting the covering of her long skirt compensate for the propriety the pose lacked. “Since last night I’ve been praying that they’d find something concrete—maybe a brain tumor. I know that sounds awful, but at least it would be something solid and treatable and maybe it would explain Nicky’s slowness.” She took in a breath that was audibly shaky. “Epilepsy … epilepsy takes us nowhere but downhill.”

  J. B.’s attention had shifted to the machine closest to him. Most people would have looked at the dials and buttons and digital display. Not J. B. Hands still in his pockets, he was leaning this way and that, studying the sides and undersides of the machine. “Epilepsy?”

  “They’ve ruled out most everything else.”

  He straightened and looked at her again, this time in the same way he’d been studying Nicky, with a vacancy that was somehow intense. The look was frightening; it gave most people the willies. But Sabrina was used to it. She knew enough to let him stare to his heart’s content, while she looked wherever she felt like looking, which at the moment was at her son.

  Nicky did resemble his uncle. The child’s hair was more brown, but the nose and mouth were the same. And the unfocused eyes. J. B.’s eyes were often unfocused. For a while Sabrina had wondered if her son’s dazed looks and reluctance to speak were nothing more than a baby version of J. B. Monroe’s oddness. The thought hadn’t thrilled her, but the alternative was worse, and she’d been grasping for straws.

  J. B.’s voice cut into her thoughts. “Where’s Nick?”

  She batted the air in disgust.

  “He’s an asshole,” was J. B.’s verdict.

  “He’s doing business.”

  “He should be here.”

  “Try telling him that, if you can reach him. I can’t.”

  “Then he doesn’t even know Nicky’s hospitalized?”

  “Nope.” She dared meet J. B.’s gaze, wondering what she’d see, but there was only that same concentrated void. For the first time in her life, she found it an odd comfort. She wasn’t in the mood to be judged.

  Without fully emerging from the void, he said, “I want coffee,” and invited her along with the toss of his head toward the door.

  “Uh, I don’t know … maybe I should stay.”

  “Sabrina, the kid’s out of it.”

  “He may wake up.”

  “If he does, one look at you will scare the shit out of him.”

  She shot him a dry glance. “Thanks.”

  He repeated the gestured invitation.

  A short time later they sat facing each other at a small table in the hospital cafeteria. To Sabrina’s surprise, J. B., who normally carried plastic instead of cash, not only had cash—which was all the cafeteria accepted—but had insisted on buying her dinner. Actually, he’d bullied her into it by telling her that she looked like death warmed over, and he’d put the corned-beef-and-cabbage plate on her tray before she could escape.

  “I hate corned beef,” she said with utter calm. “You know that, J. B. I’ve hated it since I was five.”

  He transferred the corned beef to his own tray and helped her to some meat loaf.

  “J. B.…” she warned. Meat loaf came second only to corned beef on her list of dislikes, and J. B. knew that, too. He was being perverse. When he exchanged the meat loaf for the stuffed chicken breast she might have otherwise enjoyed, she didn’t bother to tell him that she wasn’t terribly hungry. She didn’t have the strength.

  Now, though, he was perversely urging her to eat. She cut a piece of chicken and pushed it around her plate, but she was far more interested in the coffee, which was all she’d really wanted. Her stomach was upset. She just needed something to keep her awake.

  J. B. ate with his typically absent attention, concentrating on his food as
though it were anything but food and he were anywhere but there. Sabrina did manage to eat a little, but she was on her second cup of coffee before her brother returned from wherever his mind had been.

  “Tell me about Nick,” he said.

  Nick was the last person she wanted to discuss, but since J. B. had sprung for dinner, she felt she owed him one. Setting down her cup, she tipped up her chin and said, “What would you like to know?”

  “Why did you marry him?”

  Her chin dropped right back down. She’d expected something neutral, something to do with business. “What kind of question is that?”

  He was staring at her again, distractedly dissecting her through the lenses of his glasses. “Did you love him?”

  A tiny frown crossed her brow. “Yes.”

  “Do you still?”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it without saying a word.

  “He’s never here. Are you separated?”

  “Come on, J. B.—”

  “Are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But the marriage stinks.”

  “Who said that?”

  “No one had to. I’ve been there.”

  “J. B., your marriage was different from mine from day one.”

  “Maybe. But still I can see it. You’re angry, and it’s not the kind of anger that’ll go away. Nick isn’t here when he should be, and you’re angry.”

  She shook her head. “I’m too tired to be angry.”

  “You’re still angry. And you have a right. You had certain expectations when you married him. He was your Prince Charming. He wooed you in high style. He did all the traditional little things that Mom and Dad called corny. He was steady and dependable and devoted. I thought it would last, Sabrina. I really did. I thought you’d make it last. You managed for eight years—”

  “Not eight,” she said, abandoning all pretense of denial. Her brother had seen through it anyway, and there was something about the way he was speaking—the insightful, rational, personal way he was speaking—that was uncharacteristic enough to demand a straightforward and honest return. “Not eight. Five.”

  J. B. lapsed into a prolonged and pensive silence. He separated the saltshaker from the pepper and sugar, turned it one way and then the other, studied its contents, scrutinized the tiny holes on top. Then he crinkled his nose to hike up his glasses and said, “It’s not Nicky’s fault.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “Your marital problems.”

  “I know.”

  “When alien spirits intrude—”

  “Oh no.” Sabrina bowed her head, She knew it; he’d been too eloquent when he’d been talking of Nick. J. B. was only eloquent when he was weaving a tale, or about to. “Please, J. B.”

  “Please, what?”

  “Don’t start. We’ve been through this so many times before. I can’t take it now.”

  “But my theory hasn’t been disproved.”

  “Just because the doctors can’t put their finger on the specific cause of Nicky’s brain damage doesn’t mean that he’s been taken over by foreign spirits.”

  “But the possibility is intriguing, Sabrina. What if—”

  “Not now,” she pleaded.

  J. B. had pale green eyes like hers. Unlike hers, his had an iridescent quality that was visible only at certain times and was nearly as eerie as the stories he wrote. Sabrina saw the iridescent quality just then and knew that, short of getting up and walking away, she was in for an earful. She chose the earful because, faults and all, J. B. was her brother and she needed to be with someone close. And, anyway, she was too tired to move.

  “What if,” J. B. began, using his lean fingers to frame the scenario, “we go on the theory that Nicky was taken over at birth by a spirit that entered his body through the incubator hose. Just suppose that this spirit is of superior intelligence. It’s been grooming Nicky for the past three years and will probably keep it up awhile longer, until the indoctrination is complete.”

  “No spirit of superior intelligence is going to adopt a kid whose body doesn’t work. Try again.”

  “Why do you think Nicky’s body doesn’t work?” he asked smugly. “The spirit is concentrating on his mind while his body lies lax. His body has to lie lax for the spirit to do its thing. For all we know, Nicky is incredibly brilliant already. The development of his brain may be far beyond anything we can comprehend. He may be lying there looking at us, seeing so much more than we could ever see. He may be feeling sorry for us because of our limitations.”

  “It’s a lovely thought,” Sabrina said. “I’d have no objections to having a genius for a son. But what’s the punch line? What happens when his body suddenly comes to life? Will he start killing off all of us inferior souls?”

  J. B. shook his head. “This spirit is peaceful. Its purpose is colonization.”

  “Is it an alien spirit, as in coming from outer space?”

  Another headshake. “The only thing alien is its form and level of intelligence.”

  “But where did it come from?”

  “The center of the earth.”

  Sabrina rolled her eyes. “Come on, J. B. You can do better than that. Hasn’t the center of the earth been done before?”

  “Not like this. We’re talking germs that have existed since the planet was first formed, germs that have incubated in the heat of the earth’s core all this time and only now are ready to emerge. Nicky isn’t the only one whose body has been taken over; there are others like him. We think them to be retarded or autistic or comatose, but one day they’ll band together and form an incredibly advanced society.”

  “How will they know each other?”

  He eyed her impatiently. “Their brain waves will mesh. They’re brilliant, Sabrina. Mental telepathy is just one of their talents.”

  “I see,” she said, then asked, “Is there a happy ending to Nicky’s story, at least?”

  “I don’t know,” J. B. answered, sounding not at all upset. Every one of his books involved some sort of violent or near-violent conflict. He clearly loved the fray. “At some point, the human race as we know it will begin to feel threatened and try to control the core force. If it comes down to an out-and-out conflict, we won’t stand much of a chance.”

  “I guess I’d better try to stay on Nicky’s good side, then.”

  “I would.”

  For a long time they regarded each other in silence. Sabrina was thinking that, iridescent eyes and all, there was something sad about her brother. As well-known as he was, he had no close circle of friends. With his habit of tuning in and out and his proclivity for silence, he was hard to get to know. His fascination with the macabre made him hard to like. He had women, but there was no pattern to his tastes. Socially, he was pretty much on the outside looking in.

  “There are times,” Sabrina said—as she’d wanted to say for years but hadn’t had the nerve, “when I don’t know how seriously to take you, J. B.”

  “You’re not the only one.”

  “Do you take yourself seriously?”

  “Not usually,” he said, but he was as serious as she’d ever seen him.

  “J. B.?”

  He answered her with a somber stare.

  “I don’t know what to do about Nick.”

  “Divorce him.”

  A small involuntary sound came from her throat.

  “You don’t need him, Sabrina.”

  “I can’t divorce him.”

  “Why not?”

  “So many reasons.… I can’t begin to explain.… I feel very confused.”

  “You deserve better.”

  Through the muddle of her mind, Sabrina registered the compliment. It was the first she could remember ever receiving from her brother. Ironically, it made her more vulnerable, thereby adding to her confusion.

  “There’s Nicky. I can’t handle him on my own.”

  “You’ve been doing it all along.”

  “But there are decisions to be ma
de. If he has to be put in an institution—”

  J. B. interrupted her with an oath that effectively expressed his disapproval. She jumped to her own defense.

  “I have to. He’s not getting better. And now he’s prone to seizures. I don’t think I can do it all much longer.”

  “Get day help.”

  “I can’t. At least, not enough.”

  “Then settle for less.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Don’t do it, Sabrina. He’s your son. Don’t lock him up with a bunch of head-bangers and droolers.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes. “Don’t say that.”

  “Don’t do it.”

  “But he’s one of them, J. B. Why can’t you all see that?”

  J. B. drifted off. His expression grew vague. Eyes on Sabrina, he dug at the Formica tabletop with his spoon. At length he set the spoon down and said, “Maybe because it’s too painful. You’re the realist. You try to see things as they are. I’d rather believe that he’s in the hands of a spirit emerging from the earth’s core and that he’s on his way to bigger and better things.”

  Sabrina was momentarily without a retort. She’d never heard J. B. talk of himself that way. She’d never thought he understood himself that way. She’d been shortsighted.

  It took a minute to compose herself. “Anyway,” she said, “that’s just one of the decisions to be made.” She reached for her purse. “Excuse me a sec. I’ve got to try Nick again.”

  When she emerged from the phone booth a few minutes later, J. B. was leaning against a nearby wall. “Get him?”

  She shook her head.

  “You’ve been leaving messages for twenty-four hours and he hasn’t answered a one?”

  She sent him a pained look.

  “Divorce him, Sabrina.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I need him.”

  “You don’t.”

  “Nicky needs him.”

  J. B. didn’t even bother to answer that one.

  In frustration, she blurted out, “I’d be alone, J. B.”

  “So what?”

  “That scares me. I went from home to college to marriage. I’ve never been alone in my life.”

  “No?” He asked, and lapsed into another one of his staring trances. Sabrina was about to scream when he did something that she didn’t expect. He touched her. He closed his hand around her arm and started her walking down the hall beside him.