by Noelle Adams
Paul picked it up. It smelled like Emily—faintly ginger from the lotion she used—and it smelled like sex.
She’d been wearing it last night when they’d made love. Twice.
His knees felt strangely weak, so he sat down on a bench, still breathing in the scent of her dress and remembering how she’d looked, sounded, moved, acted, felt last night.
In spite of all of his need and excitement, he had felt safe with her last night. He’d been able to let himself go, knowing that she would accept him—all of him. Knowing that she wanted him. He had started to wonder if she might feel for him a little of what he felt for her. As he’d held her in his arms just before he went to sleep, he had…hoped.
He should have known he was wrong. He should have known it was far too much to expect. Her living was as much of a miracle as he could ever hope for.
Because, no matter how soft and tender and hot her eyes had been in bed with him last night, the feeling couldn’t have been real.
Not if she’d left him this morning.
“Oh, Mr. Marino,” a familiar voice gasped, breaking into his painful brooding. “What is it? What’s the matter? Is it Mrs. Marino?”
Paul blinked across the laundry room at Ruth, who stood at the entrance looking shocked and distraught. He was hunched over on the bench, still holding the dress near his face so he could smell Emily.
“Is she…” Ruth’s voice broke. “She’s not…”
“No,” Paul rasped, realizing what she thought. He wasn’t in the condition to sort through what was appropriate or not appropriate to discuss with her. He only knew that Ruth cared about Emily, and that seemed to matter to him. “Not that. She…she left me.”
It was physically painful to say the words out loud.
Ruth’s expression changed. She looked almost angry. “No! No, sir. She never would’ve done that.”
Paul blinked. He straightened his spine and lowered the dress. “She did.”
Shaking her head insistently, Ruth said, “I don’t believe it. She wouldn’t—not because she wanted to anyway. She loves you too much.”
Paul sucked in a breath and stared at the woman, astonished but desperately craving to hear more. “What do you mean?”
Ruth looked a little confused but deeply sympathetic. “I’m sorry, sir. I know it’s not my place. I know maybe your marriage isn’t…isn’t a traditional one. But it’s a good one for both of you, and it’s plain as anything that she’s loving you more every day.”
Paul couldn’t speak. He just stared at Ruth, wondering, hoping, praying she was speaking the truth.
Ruth sounded more confident as she continued, as if she could see Paul wanted to hear what she had to say. “She never would’ve left because she wanted to. If she left, she did it for you. Sir.” The last word was a hurried afterthought.
Deep, frantic hope nudged at the numbed edges of Paul’s mind. He started to see a pattern here, a possibility—one that was actually convincing, one that felt right. “For me?”
Ruth made a small gesture with one hand. “Maybe she thought her leaving would make things easier on you. Whatever it is, it’s not because she doesn’t want to be with you. That I know for sure.”
He took a shuddering breath and made himself think clearly. Maybe…
He could think of one reason—one absolutely insane, ridiculous, nonsensical reason—Emily might think it would be easier for him if she weren’t around.
Paul stood up abruptly, compelled by a rising force of emotion that felt almost like rage. Surely she wouldn’t have …she wouldn’t have…
Ruth quickly got out of the way as he strode out of the laundry room, almost blind with the whirl of ideas and feelings that had just hit him like a wave.
If she’d left for him, then she was, for some reason, convinced she was going to die. And he knew she would still want to complete her list—she’d taken it with her, after all.
He remembered the few remaining items on the list. One was climbing the volcano. Two of them she wouldn’t have the resources to do on her own. One he preferred not to think about and had been ignoring since he’d originally seen it.
But there was one other item. One that made the final piece click into place.
He pulled the phone out of his pocket and dialed Marks. When he answered, Paul said, “She has a former step-sister named Stacie…” He wracked his mind, trying to come up with the last name.
“Stacie Laurel,” Marks replied, “Yes, sir.”
“She might have—”
“Yes, sir.” Marks’s interrupting Paul was a clear sign that the man was unusually excited. “We just got the LUDs from the payphones and there was a call to Stacie Laurel made from one of them at 10:43 this morning. We have her address. Would you like to—”
“Get me over there,” Paul bit out, striding down the hall toward the main door and belatedly realizing he was still holding Emily’s dress.
He dropped the dress on his way out the door. The rings he kept clenched in his fist.
***
Paul pounded on the door of Stacie Laurel’s small apartment in a much less affluent part of Center City.
It felt oddly surreal. By this point of the day, he was worked up emotionally to such an extent that the man—perspiring in the stuffy hallway and gripping two women’s rings in his hand—must be someone else, someone other than Paul Marino.
When no one answered immediately to his knock, he pounded on the door again and had to force himself not to shout to be let in.
Eventually, the door was swung open by an attractive, brown-haired, young woman with a slightly strained expression. She just stared when she saw who he was.
For just a moment, the stunned look on her face took Paul aback, and he wondered if maybe his conclusion was wrong. Maybe Emily wasn’t here after all, and he’d just tried to barge in on a random woman’s Sunday morning.
But then he saw that Stacie was holding a damp washcloth. And he knew.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“What are you doing here?” Stacie asked, sounding stressed and a little annoyed.
“I’m here to find my wife. Let me in.” Now that he was so close to Emily, he was having trouble controlling himself. He tried to walk into the apartment, even without an invitation.
Stacie blocked his way. “You can’t just barge in here,” she snapped. “This is my home.”
“And she’s my wife.” Paul rubbed his damp forehead in frustration. “She’s sick. She needs me. You’re not doing her any favors by keeping me away from her.”
When Stacie just stood in place, Paul tried to shoulder past her, finally at the end of his patience. Emily was close. He could feel it. She was sick. He had to get to her.
But he couldn’t get through. Someone else was in the apartment, someone Paul hadn’t seen until now.
Chris Mason had moved in front of Stacie, blocking the doorway with his broad frame and putting a hand on Paul’s chest to hold him back by force. Chris and Paul were probably pretty evenly matched.
In outrage and disbelief, Paul practically growled. “Damn it, Chris. What are you doing? You knew how worried I was about her, and you lied to me anyway.”
“I didn’t know where she was when we talked,” Chris explained. “Stacie called me afterwards because she was worried about her.”
“Why the hell didn’t you call me?” Paul looked at Stacie over Chris’s shoulder. “I’ve been searching all over for her. Let me in!” The thought of Emily—sick, helpless, alone in Stacie’s bedroom—twisted his gut.
“Go away, Paul,” Stacie told him, looking even more strained. “This is my apartment. You don’t have the right to be here.”
Paul almost choked. “I don’t have the right—Damn it, I’m her husband. Of course, I have the right!”
Then he heard a familiar sound, coming from the room beyond the partly opened door across the living room. Emily was crying out in a muffled, anguished tone.
She was crying out
for him.
Paul pushed against Chris’s restraining hand. “She’s asking for me,” he gritted out. “Get out of the way!”
“She doesn’t want to see you,” Stacie objected, looking pained and slightly bewildered. “She said not to call you, no matter what.”
It hurt. Even though he thought he understood why she'd said it, it hurt and outraged him that Emily would have made such a point of keeping him away from her. He made himself move past the pain, though. She needed him.
“I don’t care what she said,” Paul began, almost shaking with frustration. He wanted desperately to hit Chris, but he knew it would only make things worse. “She—” When he heard Emily cry out again, he broke off abruptly. “Someone go help her, if you’re not going to let me!”
Stacie gave him one last torn look and hurried back into the bedroom.
Paul took a raspy breath. “Chris, she’s sick. She has a fever. She’s not thinking clearly. She needs me.”
Chris now looked as torn as Stacie had. He glanced over his shoulder at the opened door of the bedroom where Emily was lying.
“I love her, Chris,” Paul said, his voice thick as he tried again. He was going to hit his panic button in about thirty more seconds. “I love her. Let me in.”
Chris stared at Paul for a tense moment. Then he dropped his arm and stepped out of the doorway.
With a sigh of relief, Paul strode across Stacie’s living room toward the bedroom. Toward Emily.
When he reached the room, he barely registered the colorful curtains and bedding or Stacie leaning over the bed with a damp washcloth.
Paul only saw Emily, small, pale, damp, tossing in discomfort. So incredibly sick.
“Oh, baby,” he rasped, his heart aching with an almost unbearable pressure. He hurried over to the bedside. “Baby, I’m here.”
She whimpered and writhed restlessly, pushing down the sheet. Her hair was loose. It was falling in her eyes, sticking to her neck and her perspiring face. Her eyes were opened but she didn’t seem to see him. “Paul,” she mumbled, “Paul, don’t. Please don’t.”
“I’m here, Emily,” he said, reaching out to stroke her damp hair away from her face. “It’s all right.”
She didn’t look at him. Didn’t respond except with another pained whimper. Her eyes were seeing something that just wasn’t there.
Stacie was trying to cool her face down, but it wasn’t appearing to help very much.
“How long has she been delirious like this?” he asked.
Stacie gave a helpless shrug. “A couple of hours. She was sick from the beginning, but she was conscious. She said she wouldn’t need a doctor—she just needed to get through the fever. But when she got delirious, I was scared. I didn’t know what to do, so I called Chris, who I knew was her friend. I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I wanted to when she started calling out for you, but she told me not to. I just didn’t know—”
Paul brushed off her words. He simply didn’t have the emotional energy to remain angry with Stacie. It was worrisome that Emily had become delirious so soon into her fever. The delirium usually didn’t happen until the very end. While she wasn’t as frantic and violent as she normally was, she was so completely out of it that his heart started to pound in growing panic.
“Do you have a bathtub?” he asked. At Stacie’s affirmation, he continued, “Can you draw a bath for her? Lukewarm—not hot but not too cold. That usually helps. And do you have a couple of those elastic band things to pull back her hair?”
Stacie got up immediately, handing him the wet washcloth and looking relieved that she wasn’t in the position of figuring out what to do anymore. She went to the bathroom, and Paul adjusted himself on the edge of the bed, learning against the headboard so he could reach Emily more easily. He wiped her hot face and had to resist the temptation to pull her into his arms.
When Stacie returned with the elastic bands, Paul pulled Emily’s hair into the two low ponytails that helped to keep it out of her face. Then he pulled down the sheet to expose Emily’s body.
She was wearing shorts and a tank-top, and her small body was obviously wracked with pain. Her limbs flailed occasionally, and she shook and shuddered as she kept babbling out mostly incoherently thoughts. She said his name a lot though, mostly in the context of trying to warn him off something, not to go somewhere.
“The bath is ready,” Stacie said, from the doorway of the bathroom. “Do you need help—”
Paul shook his head and gently pulled off Emily’s top. Her bare breasts were soft and round, and they bounced slightly with the motion. Under normal circumstances, Paul would have found her body highly distracting, but he was always too wrapped up in care and anxiety to think about sex when she was sick.
Emily’s discomfort seemed to grow quickly more intense. She started to arch up more dramatically and babble out more loudly. Paul had to struggle to get off the rest of her clothes.
“No!” Emily screamed, her voice suddenly so loud that Paul jerked in surprise. “No! Not there! Paul, no!” Her blue eyes were wild and focused intently on a blank spot in the air. “The fire! The fire!”
“It’s all right, baby,” Paul murmured hoarsely, trying to gather her writhing body in his arms. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
She struggled in his grip, frantic and uncontrollable. He didn’t know what had happened. She’d seemed delirious, but much calmer just a minute ago. One of her fists landed on his cheek, hitting him with so much force his eyes watered. “No! Paul, don’t! The fire! You’ll burn! No! Get out! Get out!”
She was screaming at the top of her voice and fighting like a wildcat. He couldn’t hold her still. She fisted one hand in his shirt and pulled it so hard it ripped the seam.
Paul’s eyes glazed over with rising panic, just as he always felt when she reached this height of fever-hysteria. But it seemed worse this time. It ripped his heart out. She used to fight him in her delirium. Now she seemed to be fighting to save him.
“I’m right here,” he rasped, trying to gather her again in his arms and hold her still enough to carry her to the tub. She was so incredibly hot he didn’t think it was possible to survive it. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”
She was unnaturally strong, contorting herself out of his grip. When he’d released her briefly to reposition himself, her spine arched up dramatically. Her eyes were wide open in terror, a shocking blue against her pale skin, and her mouth was wide open in a silent scream of anguish.
Paul couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand it. She was suffering so much, and there was nothing he could do to fix it. The pain was so sharp he just froze, staring down at her.
“Oh my God,” Stacie mumbled, coming over to the bed. There were a couple of tears on her face. “It’s just awful. The poor thing.”
Her words managed to distract Paul from his paralysis, and he bent down to gather Emily up again. This time, he was able to grip her tightly enough that he could drag her squirming form up from the bed and carry her to the bathroom.
She started screaming again, begging him to stay away, not to come close, to get out of the fire. At one point, when she kicked out against his grip, he almost dropped her.
He managed to reach the bathtub, however, and knelt down on the floor as he tried to lower her into the tepid water. She was still struggling, so he had to lean over until he was halfway in the tub himself in order to hold her still.
“Can you make sure she doesn’t bang her head or get her face underwater?” he asked Stacie, who was behind him. He was appalled to hear how weak and strained his voice sounded.
Stacie came over immediately and held Emily’s tossing head while Paul restrained her flailing arms and legs.
She was still screaming desperately—now it was mostly just, “Paul, no! Paul, no! Paul, no!” Over and over again.
“Why does she think you’re going to burn?” Stacie asked at one point, clearly deeply upset by the violent delirium.
Paul just shrugged. He knew. He was almo
st certain he knew, but it wasn’t something he could tell a stranger. It wasn’t something he could tell anyone.
Emily thought that his loving her would break him.
She might be right.
* * *
The bath lowered Emily’s fever. After several long minutes, she grew quiet. Although she still shifted restlessly in the water, she stopped her frantic screaming and flailing.
Paul let her soak for a long time, relieved when her body finally softened and her eyes closed. She seemed almost unconscious now, but she was still breathing. And she was finally not actively suffering.
When the crisis had been averted, Stacie got up and said, “If you’re all right with her for now, I’m going to send Chris home.”
Paul nodded distractedly. He’d actually completely forgotten about Chris.
Paul stayed kneeling on the floor of the bathroom, leaning on the edge of the tub and wiping Emily’s warm face with a cool washcloth. She seemed almost peaceful now, and he started to hope that maybe this round of fever had broken completely.
If it had, its span had been incredibly short. And maybe—maybe—that was a very good sign.
He tried not to hope too much, but he desperately needed some sort of encouragement. Emily’s body was small and pale in the water. Her face looked delicate, almost childish, with her hair pulled into the two ponytails.
She wasn’t a child, though. She was an incredibly generous, strong, resilient, sunny, smart, loving, extraordinary woman. And he wasn’t sure what he would do without her.
“Paul,” she breathed, her eyes still closed, her thick eyelashes fanned out against her white skin. “Please don’t.”
“It’s too late,” he murmured. He didn’t know if she could hear him, if she could understand him. But he said it anyway, as he started to drain the water and lifted her gently from the tub. “It’s too late, baby. I already do.”
He dried her off as much as he could and carried her back to the bed. He searched the dresser drawers until he found an oversized t-shirt and pulled it over her head. Then he covered her up with the sheet and comforter.
Her skin felt a lot cooler. Her fever seemed to have broken completely. Maybe—maybe—it had.
