I just can’t put any more energy into trying to convince her. I can feel it inside that she’s pretty resolute. I wish I had my journal with me.
“Go have a beautiful week with your sweetheart. He really has grown into a lovely man.”
I have to smile. “Thanks. I’ll see you Friday.”
. . . . .
The cabin is straight out of a fairy tale, tucked into the woods. Just two bedrooms, a brick fire place, cushy furniture. A hammock in the front and a grille on a bamboo deck off the back.
I stand in the foyer of the cabin and survey it all. Justin opens all the windows up and recites some of the things we can do. “…and then take a walk around the lake and then swim, but I think we might need wet suits. It’s still kind of cold…”
I’m all smiles, holding my backpack with my journal in the front pocket and my favorite pillow I can’t sleep without.
Justin washes his hands in the kitchen sink, and wipes them on a towel, slowly, like he’s thinking. He comes over and takes my bag and pillow. “You gotta see the master bedroom and the hot tub outside…”
The rest of the grand tour is brief and ends with us tumbling into the king size bed as soon as we finish putting fresh sheets on it. The sunlight pours into the room through the skylights and the ceiling fan creates the perfect breeze. These are things I think of when I look down and see that I’ve somehow removed all my clothes and he has done the same.
I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling fan’s whirling. Justin whispers something in my ear but it’s unclear. I don’t really care what he’s saying because I just want to feel this moment in a way that will stay with me—inked in permanent marker on my brain. I don’t want it to fade like handwriting on old paper. I roll over so that I’m on top of him and run my hands over his chest. He reaches up and puts a hand on either side of my face and brings me down to him and whispers again in my ear. This time I hear him.
“I love you.”
I remember other times that I heard those words. Zak. Sean. Neither time did I respond with anything other than changing the subject.
But this time I look right into Justin’s eyes and say, “I love you, too.”
. . . . .
The Good Feeling didn’t stay with me though. Moments after losing my virginity, while Justin falls fast asleep, I slip out of bed and walk into the kitchen. My heart pounds and I feel sweaty. I gulp down a glass of water.
I haven’t had a panic attack in months. I didn’t even bring my Rescue Remedy with me to the cabin. I didn’t bring any of the anti-anxiety meds to California at all.
Can’t call Peter. Definitely can’t bother Bubbie. Hell, I’d take talking to my mother right now.
Shit.
I look around the kitchen and then the living room for something. I don’t even know what. I see a coffee table with some books on architecture and cooking. In the kitchen, I see way too many wooden spoons in a carafe and a ton of cutting boards piled up on the side of the fridge. A picture of Tony and some woman is held with a magnet on the side of the fridge. But there’s my backpack on the table with my journal sticking out.
I grab the bag then rummage around the kitchen and find a pen in a drawer full of knick-knacks. I plop on the comfy couch. Before I open the journal, I sit with my eyes closed and try to do some of this ujjayi breathing that I remember from all those yoga classes with Barbara. I don’t know how much time passes, but my heart slows down. I pick up the pen.
I don’t know what I’m feeling.
My breath was all choppy and my heart hurt.
But now my breath is smooth, and my thoughts are becoming more clear.
Maybe I’m just scared.
Was Peter right? Will I screw this all up?
What am I afraid of?
I don’t know what’s coming next. The first time in my life I don’t know what’s next, and I don’t know what to do or what I want— No, I’m just afraid of what I want and if I give into it, I might lose again. I just don’t want to lose anyone again.
. . . . .
I close the notebook with the pen in it and sit with my breath and body just pulsing and beating. I hear the faint sound of the fan whirling in the bedroom and a kind of hooting outside. I walk to the bay window and look out into the darkness and just see the shadows of all the tall trees. I open a side window and just breathe in the air. It’s kind of sharp and smells of the lake and dirt. All I want is to calm down, calm down so I don’t bolt, which is what I want to do. I can see myself taking the keys that hang on the key hook by the door, and darting out into the darkness, barefoot and barely dressed, backpack over my shoulder. I see myself turning on the car and driving…driving back to Connecticut and forgetting Justin and Bubbie and everything. But I think of a Bubbism that’s like an old country song, better to have lost at love then never to have loved at all. I grab my notebook and sit down again.
Chapter Twelve
“Do you need a doctor?”
“Maddie?” I feel myself being nudged in the shoulder. I’m on my stomach and turn my head and open my eyes.
Justin’s face, eyebrows knitted together, looms in front of mine. “Holy shit. You scared me when I reached over to hug you this morning and all I got was an armful of pillows. My uncle has a shitload of pillows.”
I bury my head into my arms and groan.
“Are you okay?” He strokes my back. “Does it…hurt?”
“A little,” I say into my arms.
“Can you walk?”
Turning all the way so he can see my face, I say with complete seriousness, “Barely.”
“Oh man! Do you need a doctor or something?” He looks worried.
I burst out laughing.
“Very funny.” He nudges me again but then kisses the top of my head.
I sit up and he sits next to me. “That was a big deal to me, last night. I just want you to know that.”
I nod. But he looks at me like he’s waiting for me to say something else.
“And what we said to each other, you know,” he looks nervous. “What we said. It means something. It means a lot.”
I stand up and go to the kitchen. “Are you hungry? I’m starving.” I open the fridge. “We have a bottle of water and a couple sticks of butter. Yum.” I keep opening and closing cabinets.
Justin walks into the kitchen. “What are you doing?”
I hold up a box of Bisquick from the cabinet. “Maybe making pancakes?”
He snatches it from me and says, “You need milk and eggs.”
“Right.”
He waits a beat and then says, “Maddie, do you want to be with me?”
I turn back to the cabinet pretending to look for more ingredients.
My heart is pounding so hard. I have to just turn around and say it or the anticipation will give me a heart attack.
I close the cabinet and without turning say to the counter top. “I’m just scared.”
He’s behind me, arms circling my waist. “Me, too.”
We just stand there for a minute. Then I say, “Okay.”
“Don’t sound so excited.”
I turn around and kiss him on the mouth.
“That’s better,” he says.
. . . . .
I give in and forget the outside world for the rest of the week but on Thursday afternoon as we are packing to leave early Friday morning, I feel the familiar burning behind my ears and twitch in my eye. The anxiety monster returns. By now, I’ve spilled the entire story about my mental melt down to Justin so he’s on to me before I can head for the hills
screaming.
I’m frantically scrubbing the kitchen countertop and have just spent the last hour scrubbing every single cleared off surface in the house when Justin comes up behind me and says the only thing that stops me:
“Your mom called. She wants her sponge back.”
I stop mid-scrub and glare at him.
“Easy now, just put down the sponge, carefully carefully!”
I throw the sponge into the sink and cross my arms.
Justin puts his arms around me, but I don’t budge.
“You’re freaking out.” He says into the top of my head. Then he puts his chin there and says, “But I’m trying to figure out if it’s because of me or your grandmother.”
I turn around and put my arms around his waist and say into his chest, “Both.”
“What are you so worried about with us?”
“The end.”
“What end?”
“The inevitable end of us…again.”
“Why do we have to end?”
I don’t have an answer but that need-to-know list pops into my head. The only good thing to come from Larry. I never even began that list and suddenly there are things that I need to know.
“Do you still have the picture my sister painted of you?”
He breaks into a grin. “Yes. It’s hanging in my room in Florida. The only thing that hangs in my room. What does that have to do with—”
“Have you watched The Princess Bride in the last few years?”
His smile turns to serious. “Yes,” he says quietly.
“And did you ever think of me when it came on?”
“Yes, every time, and I would only change it if one of my friends came into my room ‘cause you know guys don’t exactly watch The Princess Bride.”
I’m cataloging his answers into the drawers of my mind, but I keep firing away at these things on my list. They are like a stack of index cards filled with questions. “What do you do to make sure you don’t drink or smoke pot?”
His face clouds for a minute. “I just don’t do it. Sometimes I go to meetings if I’m feeling fucked up.”
“And how do you plan on us staying together after we both leave California?”
“I’ll drive to Emerson every weekend, and you’ll come up to see me.”
“What about my parents?”
“I’ll win them over with my charm.”
“You have an answer for everything.”
He reaches out and pulls me close to him. “No, I don’t. I just know what I want.”
We hold each other in the silence, save for this one damn bird that’s been chirping an afternoon revelry every day we’ve been here.
“Can’t that bird shut up,” I say, finally.
“I don’t hear anything,” he whispers.
. . . . .
“But why hasn’t she called me the entire week? Why didn’t she or Joyce return my voicemails?”
Justin pops the GPS back into the holder and grabs his sunglasses from the center console. “I don’t know, but I do think if something was wrong, they would call you.”
Which happens just as we are about to get into the car. My cell phone buzzes, and I know, like you just know these types of things, before I answer it that it’s Joyce.
“Maddie,” I hear her sigh and I don’t want to hear the next set of sentences that are about to come out of her mouth. “Helen was admitted this morning.”
“What happened?” I shut my eyes.
“I’m not sure. She went to the bathroom last night, and she was in there a while and they knocked on the door and when she didn’t answer, they opened the door, and she was passed out on the floor and there was all this blood…”
“Oh, God.”
“But the good news is that she is in the hospital right now and she’s resting. I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner. They are prepping her for a colonoscopy right now. The plan is to do it in the morning.”
“What do they think is happening?”
“No one wants to say exactly, but I did manage to get the doctor to speak frankly with me and he said that she probably has some more tumors.” She pauses, and I let that kind of go down into my body. “I called your parents a few minutes ago, and they are getting on the next plane.”
“Should we head out to you guys?”
“Come in the morning.”
“Okay.” I say because there’s nothing else I can do.
When I hang up the phone, I say to Justin, “Not good,”
“Do you want to leave now?”
“I don’t know.”
He puts his arm around me. “Whatever you want to do, Maddie, I’m here.”
“I know, “I say. “I know.”
Chapter Thirteen
Mom
The steamy air in the recovery room makes my whole body sweat. Justin and I hold clammy hands and sit on the couch in front of the hospital bed where Bubbie lies, her head uncovered, signs of her gray hair coming back in and a half smile splayed across her face.
I lean in to Justin and whisper, “Thank God that noise finally stopped.”
BEEP…BEEP… BEEP…
“Oh, God. Not again.” I close my eyes and try to collect the burning anger inside.
BEEP…BEEP… BEEP…
“What the hell!” BEEP… “Doesn’t anyone else hear this friggin’ beeping?” My voice is an octave from a yell. I glance over at Bubbie, but she doesn’t even twitch. Those drugs are that good.
BEEP… BEEP… BEEP…
“That’s it!” I throw both hands up in the air.
BEEP… BEEP… BEEP…
Justin grabs my hands and puts them both in his lap. He looks at me and says, “You have to calm down. The machine is broken. Remember that’s what they said and they’re coming back with a new one—”
The blue of Justin’s eyes does the trick for a moment. I nod, try to take a deep breath, but the friggin’ BEEP… BEEP… BEEP causes me to start coughing on the inhale. Justin whacks me on the back, and Joyce rushes over with water. “I’m fine!” I bark at both of them. Joyce leaves the water on the coffee table in front of the couch and scurries away. Justin holds the cup in front of me. I sulk but take a sip.
That’s when Bubbie opens her eyes and says softly, “Thirsty.”
I leap up from the couch, but Joyce, already holding a cup of water, beats me.
Magically the beeping stops.
“Here,” Joyce leans down and brings it to Bubbie’s mouth, holding it while she sips. I slide my hand over Bubbie’s. It’s warm and soft.
After just a moment, Bubbie pushes the cup away and Joyce puts it back on the table, then busies herself with organizing the water pitcher, cups, and packages of saltines.
Bubbie squeezes my hand firmly, smiles, and then her eyes fall closed. Back to dreamland.
Joyce is right next to me immediately. Again. “Saltine?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“I’ll take one,” Justin says to her from the couch. She grabs enough to feed the entire hospital floor and dumps them on his lap.
“Whoa! Uh, thanks.” He gives me a silly smile and mouths, “I’m not even hungry.” I start to relax and then—
BEEP… BEEP… BEEP…
“Oh, come on!”
Joyce waves me off and straightens a pillow on the couch...even though Justin had been using it to lean on. He almost falls over.
“You shouldn’t worry.” She says pounding t
he pillow into submission. Justin scoots closer to the end of the couch, saltines in tow. She continues, “They’ve been coming in here and checking her pulse by hand.”
“But the sound is driving me crazy!” I explode and stomp out of the room. I fly down to the nurses’ station, grab the first nurse, and say, “Please make that stupid beeping stop!” Without a flinch or change of expression she says, “Just a minute.”
I watch her disappear behind the circular desk. All my fatigue just hits me, and I slump into a plastic chair next to the wall. No one will tell me what’s happening. If Bubbie is okay. Where are my parents? They should be here. If Mom were here she’d have this all figured out. I straighten up. “I just have to channel a little Mom,” I say to the nurse who looks at me like I’ve landed on the last spaceship from Pluto.
. . . . .
When I return to the room, the noise is gone. In the silence of Bubbie’s breathing, Joyce knits. Justin watches a muted episode of How I Met Your Mother without laughing.
I sit next to him. He squeezes my knee but stays engrossed in the show. Joyce glances up at us from the rocking chair next to the head of the bed. Now she’s calmed down to the point of knitting. The fuchsia knitting needles dance between her fingers, reflecting the harsh hospital light, bouncing pink flashes across the dreary walls. I sigh and lay my head on Justin’s knee. A tiny hero scar is still there. Fourth grade. Wrestling this punk who called us a bunch of Jew-Jew bees, to the ground. Wonder if that kid’s nose ever recovered from Justin’s fist? I trace the scar with my finger. And I breathe in. Deeply.
“When is the doctor coming in with the results, Joyce?” I say, sitting up on the sticky hospital couch. Sweat beads above my lip. Justin, who seems unaffected by the temperature in this room moves with me, still holding me.
Joyce pauses mid stitch and glances up at the clock above the TV. “He said he’d be around four.”
Till it Stops Beating Page 20
