A Kiss to Dream On

by Neesa Hart

“I’ll be all right.”

  “I wish you’d let me help you.”

  “You’d help me if you’d think about what I told you yesterday.”

  “Honey, I’ve done nothing but think about what you told me.”

  “You have a very thick head.”

  “Then I’m in excellent company.”

  “I guess.” She pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “I really want to go to bed, Jackson. Are you going to tell me the other thing or not, because I’m hanging up soon.”

  “Oh. That. I just wanted to make sure you heard me tell you I love you before the day is over.” He sighed. “I love you, Cammy. Try to get some sleep.”

  And he hung up. She held the receiver to her ear until she heard the dial tone, then slowly placed it back in its cradle. Weary to the bone, she punched the remote to turn off the TV. The dark feeling that she was staring professional ruin in the face suddenly seemed to pale in comparison to the fact that this extraordinary man said he loved her. It would be a comfort tonight, anyway, though she knew she would have to push it away in the morning.

  Jackson drummed his fingers on the receiver of the phone in his office as he stared into the night. She had sounded terrible. He hadn’t bothered to tell her that Bruce Philpott had called that afternoon to give him an update on Laura’s condition. She wouldn’t have appreciated that, he suspected. He hated the idea of her sitting alone in her apartment. If he told himself the truth, he hated the idea of her sitting alone anywhere. Behind him, he heard the buzz of the always busy newsroom, but it failed to draw his attention as it normally did.

  His phone rang, and he snatched it up with a wild kind of hope in his heart. “Yeah?”

  “Jackson?” He recognized his sister Karen.

  “Oh, hi.”

  “You sound distracted. Is this a bad time?”

  “No.” He frowned at the clock on his desk. “How did you know you’d find me here?”

  She laughed. “Are you kidding? There’s a big story unfolding that involves a woman you brought home to meet us. I didn’t even try your house first. I knew you’d be there banging your head against a wall.”

  “Good guess.”

  “So what’s going on?”

  He rubbed a hand over his face. The two-day stubble of his beard scratched his palm. “It’s political, mostly. Meyerson and Herrington are hoping that Cammy’s demise will gain them some votes. Cammy’s had unqualified support from the president for a long time. That can make a person a target. She got caught in the middle of some political posturing, and my series of stories added fuel to the inferno.” .

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “I’m going to get her out of it.”

  “You sound sure.”

  “I’m sure,” he said tightly. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “How’s the child?”

  “Amy? She’s okay. She’s disappointed, but it’s nothing like the press is making it out to be. Van Root has already called me today to check on her. I saw her last night. She’s coping.”

  “It looks bad from out here.”

  “The members of my noble profession have a way of doing that. We’re bored. There’s not much going on, so we’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”

  “How’s Cammy holding up?”

  He wished he knew. “I’m not sure. It seems bad.”

  Karen paused. “Is she, are the two of you—”

  “You’re doing a really poor job asking about my love life.”

  “Okay. How is it?”

  “Depends.”

  “On?”

  “On what you mean. If you mean—how’s my love life in the sense that is there a woman I’m completely and irrevocably enamored of, who I want to marry and spend the rest of my life with—then the answer is: my love life is great.”

  “Where’s the catch?”

  “She’s hardly speaking to me.”

  “Because of the articles?” Karen sounded surprised.

  “It’s more complicated than that. I’d explain it, but I’m not sure I fully understand it myself.”

  “Don’t give up on her, Jackson.”

  “You’re about the fourth person who’s given me that advice today.”

  “Must be a sign. Listen, I know you’re busy, and I don’t want to keep you. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

  “I feel like hell.”

  Karen laughed. “Must be love.”

  “The worst kind.”

  “Before you go, Andy wants to talk to you. Do you have a minute?”

  “Always.” He listened as Karen instructed his niece not to babble.

  “Hi, Uncle Jackson.”

  As always, the sound of her voice warmed him. “Hey, Peanut. How are you?”

  “Good. I lost a tooth today.”

  He did some mental arithmetic. Andy was a little young to be losing her teeth. “No kidding? Did it get loose and fall out?”

  “No. Willie Wickerson knocked it out on the playground.”

  He laughed. “Did he knock it out on purpose, or by accident?”

  “Accident. The tooth fairy’s gonna bring me a dollar.”

  “A whole dollar? What are you going to do with it?”

  “Buy gum,” she said in a pained voice that suggested his intellect had failed to impress her.

  “Oh.”

  “Uncle Jackson?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you and Miss Cammy fighting?”

  He pulled in a breath. “What makes you think that?”

  “Mama said you got Miss Cammy in trouble.”

  He thought that over. “I did. Sort of.”

  “Don’t you like her anymore?”

  “I like her a lot.”

  “You gotta ’pologize, Uncle Jackson.”

  He smiled a sad smile. “You think that will help?”

  “Uh-huh. Once last year, I got my friend Annie in trouble because I told on her when she really didn’t do anything wrong. My teacher made me ’pologize in front of the whole class. I told everyone that Annie didn’t do it, that I just thought she did it, and that I wanted to be her friend again.”

  “Did it work?” he asked quietly.

  “She invited me to her sleep over.”

  He’d willingly tear his own heart out if Cammy would invite him to a sleep over, he mused. “I’m glad.”

  “It would work for you, too, Uncle Jackson. I like her.”

  “Me too.”

  “She likes you.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “She looks at you the same way Mama looks at Daddy.”

  “What way?’’ He glanced up when Krista Swenlin, a look of triumph on her face, burst into his office.

  “Gooey.”

  He laughed. Krista set a stack of photos in front of him. He flipped through them, searching with a practiced eye. “I love you, Peanut.”

  “I love you, too, Uncle Jackson.”

  “And thanks for the advice.” He met Krista’s gaze when he pulled a photo from the stack. Elation stirred through him as he studied the image. “I think I’ll take it.”

  Karen prompted Andy in the background. “Good night, Uncle Jackson.”

  “Good night, Peanut. Tell the tooth fairy I said hello.”

  She giggled as she hung up the phone. Jackson dropped the receiver in its cradle. “Where did you get it?” he asked Krista.

  “Congressional Research Service Archive. And don’t ask me to do that again, Jack. They got suspicious. Photographers don’t generally do a lot of research down there.”

  He rubbed his thumb over the picture. “I know. Thanks.”

  “I did it because I really like Dr. Glynn.” She leaned over his desk to look at the photo. “Do you think this is really going to work?”

  This, he thought, and a few other things. His gaze narrowed on the picture. Anita Meyerson, then a candidate for public office, flanked by Jeffrey Herrington and an assorted group of l
obbyists and foreign financiers, stared angrily at the camera. A Georgetown University academic building towered behind them. Meyerson and Herrington, he’d learned today, had both attended the private university. Despite Herring-ton’s vocal support of the deaf community and its needs, he’d opted to attend the upper-crust Georgetown over the deaf college, Gallaudet. That fact wasn’t going to play well with his target audience.

  But even better, Jackson thought as he studied the picture, Meyerson was deep in conversation with one of the financiers. She had narrowly won her congressional race with the help of several independent expenditures, funded by foreign interests who had suffered at the hands of her opponent’s prominent position on the House Appropriations Committee.

  The hours he’d spent at the Federal Election Commission that afternoon had yielded a wealth of information about Meyerson’s campaign finances and, unless he missed his guess, her less than legal solicitation of foreign money. Her campaign staff had managed to hide the funds behind political action committees and special interests, but Jackson knew enough about the system to believe that the word collusion would drain the color from Anita Meyerson’s face.

  He’d sent Krista to the Congressional Research Service on a hunch. And she’d struck gold. If Congress-woman Meyerson hoped to be president, she probably wouldn’t want to explain this photograph to the voters. Nor, he suspected, would she want to weather a series of articles, under his byline, on the strange history of lawmakers who broke laws on their way to becoming presidential hopefuls.

  He looked at Krista with a slow grin of satisfaction and whispered, “Gotcha.”

  seventeen

  Startled from a deep sleep by the flashing of her bedside lamp, Cammy sat straight up in bed at 1 A.M. the following morning. Disoriented, she glanced at the lamp for several seconds before she realized her phone was ringing. Reaching for her transmitter, she fumbled with the earpiece, then picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Cammy? It’s Bruce Philpott.”

  “Bruce? Something’s wrong.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I’m sorry. I think you’d better come down here. Your mother’s asking for you, and I think she may not make it through the night.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Cammy—” His voice stopped her from slamming down the receiver.

  “Yes?”

  “Mike called earlier to check on Laura. I let him know things don’t look good. Would you like me to call him for you? I’m sure he’d want to be here.”

  She hesitated, the aching sense of loss she felt compounded by the reality that she’d walk this road alone. At her father’s funeral, hundreds of well-wishers had crowded the memorial service. She’d been alone then, too, she realized, but this felt more real, more tragic somehow. After sixty-two years of life, when her mother died, the likelihood was better than average that only Cammy would be present at the graveside. She exhaled a long breath. “No, it’s okay, Bruce.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “All right. I’ll meet you here at the hospital. Be careful driving.”

  “I will.”

  She hurried into her clothes, wondering a little frantically what she was going to do. She tugged a fleecy sweatshirt over her head, then stopped short when she heard the knock on her door. Firm. Insistent. Jackson.

  She knew it before she pulled the door open. He looked tired, she noted. And wonderful. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m driving you. I don’t think you should do this alone. You may not want me, but I’m not giving you much of a choice, either.” He tipped his head to one side. “Say yes now, and I’ll let you yell at me later.”

  She frowned at him. “How did you know?”

  “I have spies everywhere. Are you ready?”

  Hesitating, she studied him in the dim evening light. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, I do. You just haven’t figured that out yet.” He held out a hand. “Are you ready, or do you need a few minutes?’’

  She decided against arguing with him. She didn’t have the energy, and there was a strange sense of rightness in having him there. Tonight, he’d see the situation at its worst. He’d experience exactly how devastating Laura’s long illness had been, and see the ravaging effects Cammy had been trying to explain to him. If he wasn’t smart enough to spare himself, she didn’t have the strength to argue with him. “Let me get my shoes.”

  Twenty minutes later, they walked down the near-deserted hall of the hospital. Jackson had barely spoken to her on the short drive. Bruce intercepted them in the corridor. The look that passed between Jackson and Philpott told Cammy all she needed to know about Jackson’s unexpected arrival at her apartment. “How is she, Bruce?” she asked.

  “Slipping.” He laid a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. “Fast. Marche was here earlier. We’ve got her as comfortable as possible, but her internal systems are shutting down.”

  Jackson’s hand glided around Cammy’s waist. “Is there anything we can do?”

  Philpott shook his head. “Occasionally, she asks for Cammy, but I’ve taken her off her regular meds. Marche and I agreed there was no point in adding additional physical stress with too much medication. Her mind is just about gone.” He glanced at Cammy. “She may not recognize you.”

  “I understand.” Her gaze fixed on the door to her mother’s room. In the back of her mind played a scene. When she’d been fifteen, she’d first discovered the extent of her mother’s illness. She’d gone into her father’s bedroom to find her mother yelling accusations at the closet door. The wild look in Laura’s eyes had frightened her, then. Cammy had fled the house in confused fear, only to face her father’s anger later. She’d gone to a friend’s house to wait. Durstan had reprimanded her that night for telling her friend’s family what she’d seen. No one, he’d said, must know the extent of Laura’s deterioration.

  She gave herself a mental shake as she started toward the door. She was not fifteen, and she understood precisely what was happening on the other side of that door. This time, there would be no lectures from Durstan, no bitter looks from Laura when the episode passed. She squared her shoulders and slipped free of Jackson’s embrace. Pushing open the door, she stepped into the dim interior of her own personal view of hell.

  “Hello, Mother.”

  Laura groaned. Cammy crossed to the bed to take her hand. “I’m here.”

  Vacant eyes met hers. Her mother mumbled a few incoherent sentences and thrashed in the tangled covers. Cammy smoothed the sheets and straightened the pillows. “Can I get you anything?” she asked. The shaft of light that fell across the semi-darkened room told her Jackson had let himself inside. Without looking, she knew he stood just inside the door, one shoulder braced against the wall, watching.

  She drew a deep breath. Monitoring equipment beeped a monotonous cadence of ominous warning. “Do you want some water?”

  Laura twitched. “Water. Yes.”

  Cammy held the straw to her lips. Laura took several greedy sips, then grabbed Cammy’s forearms with a surprisingly strong grip. “Cameo?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re here.”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  She set the water glass on the bed stand. “Of course I came.” Curious, she studied the look in her mother’s eyes. Laura looked alert, lucid, perhaps more lucid than Cammy had seen her in years. “You don’t feel well, do you?”

  “I’m dying.”

  Cammy didn’t ask how she knew. “Yes.”

  Laura nodded. “It’s a good thing. I don’t want to live like this anymore.”

  Cammy sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry, Mother.”

  Laura’s hands tightened their grip. “Don’t leave me. I don’t want you to leave me.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I want you to tell Durstan that it’s not my fault. I didn’t mean to fail him. You’ll tell
him?”

  “Yes,” Cammy promised.

  “He won’t believe you.”

  “Maybe he will.”

  Laura shook her head. “No. He blamed me for all of it. For you. He blamed me for you.”

  “I know.”

  Laura began to weep. “He wanted everything. I couldn’t give it to him. He always wanted more. No matter what I had, he wanted more.” Her breathing accelerated as she kicked at the sheets. “You have to tell him. You have to make him understand.”

  “I will.” Cammy pressed her hands to her mother’s shoulders, trying to still her nervous motions. “Don’t worry.”

  Long seconds passed. “He’s not coming,” Laura finally said.

  “No.”

  “He’s dead.”

  Cammy hesitated. “Yes.”

  Laura began weeping again. “I never got to tell him. I couldn’t tell him. I didn’t want it to be like this.” The words trailed into incoherence.

  Cammy’s eyes wandered as she listened to the mumbling. She sensed Jackson’s presence at the edge of the room, but she didn’t dare look at him.

  The minutes stretched into an hour, then more. Cammy lost track of time as she watched Laura glide in and out of consciousness. Through the hours of the night, attendants would come to monitor her vital signs, administer medication, but the close confines of the room remained eerily still. Her ranting became less and less coherent as she slipped closer to the end. Jackson had taken a seat on the far side of the room, where he sat in silence. The first streaks of dawn were beginning to push their way into the night sky when Laura’s gaze fixed on Cammy’s. “Cameo?” she whispered.

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Laura’s hands reached for her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  Cammy felt a tightening in her throat. “You don’t need to be sorry.”

  “I failed him. I failed you. I couldn’t do it. I wanted to.”

  “I know you did.”

  “I wanted to be a good mother.” Her face twisted into a grimace as a shaft of pain streaked through her. “It hurts,” she moaned. “Oh, it hurts.”

  Cammy tightened her grip on Laura’s hands. “I’m sorry.”

  Laura moaned again. Tears glided down her cheeks as her body trembled from the force of her sobbing. “I don’t want to be alone. I’m afraid. I’m so afraid.”