“You’ll soon get snapped up,” she said as Demi began walking away, heading off down the ward.
Demi wished she could believe her but there wasn’t much demand for women in their early twenties with young sons.
“Hey, Demi, there’s someone just come in who you’ll want to see,” her colleague, Ginger, said as Demi approached the nurses’ station.
“Who?” Demi asked, intrigued.
Ginger pointed towards the white board behind her which displayed the names of all current patients within their ward.
Scanning it, Demi immediately spotted the name which Ginger was referring to.
“Jared’s here?”
“Came in two hours ago, routine stuff, chest infection, just being careful.” Ginger explained.
“I’d best go and see him,” Demi said, preparing to hurry in the direction of Jared’s room.
“He’s already asked for you four times,” Ginger called after her.
####
The scents of New York City made Arthur want to heave as he headed in to work. Each time he smelt hot dogs, bagels or roasting nuts he had to fight the urge to turn and vomit on to the sidewalk.
He felt utterly wretched and the crowded streets were doing nothing to ease his symptoms.
He wove his way towards the subway, eager to get out of the morning sunshine and in to the darkness of the tunnels.
Listening to his iPod, it helped drown out the constant drone of traffic which he had yet to become accustomed to and feared the day when he would.
It was just as busy in the subway as it was on the streets but at least it was less hot and without the scent of the various vendors lingering in the air.
Waiting patiently on the platform, Arthur scanned the various people around him, all wearing suits and eager to commence their working day. They waited in droves, and this part of the day always saddened him, when he felt like an ant, small and insignificant within the hive of the city.
Once at work, he felt important, appreciated. But he wasn’t there yet.
Turning up his music in an attempt to escape the reality of the commute, Arthur tried to focus on the sounds in his ears. The current song ended and the next one began. He’d only heard the opening chords when his heart caught in his chest.
It was The Cure, Just Like Heaven. It was his and Demi’s song. The music flooded his ears and his senses and suddenly a thousand memories which he’d kept buried came bubbling to the surface.
He remembered Demi in his car, singing to the song, he remembered them in the tattoo parlour getting branded together. She’d looked so afraid of the needle but hadn’t said as much. She turned as white as a sheet but merely bit her lip and soldiered through. But that was Demi. She was tough as nails when she wanted to be.
With the memories came the feelings he’d had. How much he’d loved Demi. It pained Arthur to remember how he’d ultimately treated her.
He’d worked so hard to run from her, from his mistakes, but still she followed him, never being far from his thoughts.
As his train pulled in, the song ended and Arthur realized with sudden, unexpected clarity that he was still in love with Demi. That he’d never stopped loving her. He suddenly felt an overwhelming compelling urge to see her.
Retrieving his cell phone within his jacket he called a number he’d been too scared to dial for many years.
####
“Jared,” Demi said brightly as she entered the side room.
Mrs. Cooper looked up from the chair where she was sitting beside her son and her face flushed momentarily.
“Demi!” Jared smiled broadly from the bed where he was propped up on various pillows. He was still extremely small for his age, his features still angelic and young even if gaunt.
Dark bags beneath his eyes told her how tired he was.
“I hear you’ve had a bad chest,” Demi said as she came in, completely ignoring Mrs. Cooper as she did so.
“I’ll just go and get some coffee,” Jared’s mother said to her son as she promptly exited the room.
“I’m sorry my Mom isn’t more friendly,” Jared said sadly. “I keep hoping she’ll get better about things.”
“She will, don’t worry,” Demi told him confidently knowing that she would never be on decent terms with neither Mr. nor Mrs Cooper since she had Logan; they treated her as if she had the plague. Perhaps it was too hard to accept that their son had abandoned her, but rather than help, they let their shame cause a wedge between them.
Jared began to cough violently and Demi quickly came and propped him up further.
“This damn cough,” he muttered angrily.
“Sounds nasty.”
“Nah, it’s not that bad. But Mom worries and I end up in here. Means more time off school,” Jared sighed.
“You’ll be back in no time.”
“You think?”
“Jared Cooper, you are a fighter. There’s nothing you can’t beat!”
“Thanks, Demi. You’re always so nice. Now that my Mom’s gone, I’m safe to ask if I can come see Logan again one night after school.”
“Yeah, come by anytime.”
While Arthur had run, Jared had the decency to take an interest in Logan’s life. He would come over, when he was up to it, and read stories to him and even sometimes go for short walks.
Demi really appreciated the gesture as it gave Logan a much needed male role model in his life. Jared was by far the most kind of the Coopers and she loved him for it.
“He’ll come back one day.”
“He won’t,” Demi answered almost immediately, knowing who Jared was referring to.
“He will, when I die. He’ll have to come back for the funeral.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Demi scolded.
“He’ll come back and see you, and how beautiful you are, and his little son, who is just the best kid ever, and he’ll stay in Collinswood forever and you guys can live happily ever after. That will be my legacy to you, reuniting your family.”
“Jared,” Demi sighed.
“Hey, you got to let me think that some good will come of my death,” Jared teased.
“You’re not going to die, it’s a chest infection.”
“Last month it was cold. It’s always something.”
“Your immune system is weaker than other people’s, that’s all.” Demi explained, forcing herself to sound convincing.
“Whatever. Where’s my pudding? You always make with the contraband pudding!” Jared asked playfully.
Demi smiled. “I’ll go get some right after my break.”
“I’ll be waiting!”
Shaken by Jared’s morbid words, Demi headed to the staff room to make the most of her fifteen minute break.
As she sat down with a much needed cup of coffee she was startled by her phone ringing. When she saw who was calling her heart almost stopped beating in her chest out of shock.
It was Arthur.
####
Demi hesitated before speaking as she answered the call, unsure if this were just a dream.
“Hello.”
“Demi?” Arthur’s voice came crackling through to her. He sounded older, and his voice flatter than it had once been, as though hardened by his lessons learnt as he grew up.
“What are you doing calling me?” Demi wanted to remain calm, to hear him out, but her angry flared before she could control it.
“I just-” Arthur began to stammer a response, caught off guard.
“It’s been years since I heard from you Arthur! Years!” Demi’s voice rose an octave and colleagues in the room having their own break hastily exited, not wanting to bear awkward witness to a domestic dispute.
“I know-”
“Not once have you called to ask about our son!”
“I’m sorry I-”
“And now suddenly you call me out of the blue!”
Demi’s face burnt as she clutched the phone with frightening intensity. She felt as though her body was shaking wi
th rage. If Arthur were there before her she reckoned she would have struck him.
“I want you to come to New York,” Arthur blurted out, surprising both himself and Demi with the impromptu invitation.
“What?” Demi gasped, finally rendered speechless.
“I want you and our son to come to New York, to stay with me for a few days.”
“But…why?” Demi muttered mouth agape.
“Because I’ve missed you,” Arthur answered simply. He waited nervously on the other end of the phone, unsure how to interpret Demi’s silence.
“I’ll think about it,” she said after an unbearably long pause.
“Please,” Arthur said meekly.
“I owe you nothing,” Demi snapped and hung up the phone.
####
“Ridiculous!” Demi’s father yelled across the table at his daughter, not caring that just beyond them in the other room his Grandson was peacefully playing with his toys.
“Dad-”
“You are not going to New York with Logan to see that…that pig!” he spat the last word out as though it had left a bitter taste on his tongue.
“He’s Logan’s father,” Demi said quietly, her head lowered as she received her telling off.
“He’s no more than a sperm donor,” her Dad said bitterly, “he’s no idea what it takes to be father.”
“Perhaps he is willing to learn,” Demi suggested.
“Foolish girl, how can you defend him after he left you like he did?”
“For Logan’s sake, I can’t deny him a relationship with his father!”
Demi watched her Dad pace angrily back and forth, trying to think of a counter argument to thrust into her face before accepting defeat and sinking in to his chair. He ran his thin hands across a tired face.
“It will only be for a few days.”
“Why do this? He calls and you go running! Don’t you respect yourself?”
Her Dad’s words stung but Demi did her best not to show it.
“I respect my son.”
“If he wants to see Logan, have him come to Collinswood.”
“He’s too ashamed to come here,” Demi sighed, hating how reasonable the request sounded.
“And so he should be!” her Dad immediately snapped, his tone hostile.
“Dad,” Demi pleaded with him with her eyes and he let out an exasperated sigh.
“Fine, go. But know that I was against this from the start.”
“Thank you.”
####
Four days later, Demi hustled her very excited son on to his first plane ride. She’d already shown him the great flying machines through the glass windows in the lobby but he couldn’t quite grasp that he would be going in one.
That was until they had boarded and he’d nestled in to his seat next to his mother. He looked over her, gazing in awe out of the window even though all he could see was the runway and more planes.
“This is cool,” he cooed gleefully, kicking his legs out and bashing the chair in front of him.
“Logan, don’t do that,” Demi chided but he didn’t listen, settling in to a rhythmic kicking.
The person in front looked back at them, clearly not amused.
“Logan!” Logan ceased kicking but the mischievous look in his eye told her that he would soon start up again.
She saw the way the man in front of them looked at her as he turned to register his disdain at being kicked. He gave her a judging look, one she knew all too well.
Whenever she ate out alone with Logan, or he acted up in the mall, people gave her that same look which told her that they saw her as a foolish young mother who’d not been wise enough to wait to have a child until there was a stable man around in her life.
Demi told herself she didn’t care for their looks, that it didn’t matter what they thought. But it did. Their looks and stern faces chipped away at her, little by little. She wanted Arthur back in her life because she still loved him, in spite of everything, because she still clung to the dream that one day they would be a real family.
####
It was frighteningly busy when Demi landed at JFK airport. It took all her patience to manage to contain an overly excited Logan and also retrieve her luggage. All the time she felt judgemental eyes upon her and it drove her mad. She started to look forward to seeing Arthur and have someone else to help, which helped quash her initial nerves.
She wondered if he’d look different, if he’d think that she looked different. She’d wanted to mull over these questions in detail but Logan didn’t give her the time or the peace.
“We’re here… we’re here,” he sung as he danced in circles around his mother who was laden down with bags like a pack horse.
No one offered to help; they just watched her suffer beneath the load. Demi decided there at the airport as she hefted her bags on to a trolley that New Yorkers were rude!
Arthur was due to meet them in the lobby, which meant in just a few short steps they would be reunited and Demi suddenly felt sick. The whole trip instantly felt ludicrous and she just wanted to get on the next return flight home.
“Come on, Mommy,” Logan encouraged when he noticed her lagging behind him as he pivoted his way towards the throng of people leaving the airport.
“Logan, wait!” Demi scurried after him as best she could behind the trolley and then there he was.
Arthur Cooper, just as handsome as he had been in high school, only more rugged now and manly. Demi felt her breath catch in her chest and her heart flutter.
“Get a grip,” she scolded herself. “You’re not a stupid kid anymore.”
As the crowd thickened, Logan became less bold and retreated to the safety of his mother and Demi watched as Arthur caught sight of him, shock and awe crossing over his handsome features at the same time.
“Hi,” Demi said awkwardly as she approached, Logan was now clinging to her legs, trying to hide behind them. He didn’t like strangers.
“How was your flight?” Arthur asked, feeling stupid to offer such a biennial question but not knowing what else to say.
“Fine,” Demi said, feeling herself tense with anxiety and nerves.
“Logan, say hello to Arthur,” she instructed, glad to use her son as a distraction from the awkwardness of the conversation.
Tentatively, Logan glanced up at Arthur, before immediately delving back behind Demi’s shins.
“Hello,” he muttered nervously in to her jeans.
“He’s shy,” Demi explained as though she were addressing a shop assistant, not her son’s father.
“He’s gorgeous,” Arthur noted, watching the small child, transfixed. It was the first time he’d ever seen his son in the flesh and he was more moved than he had predicted he would be.
“Shall we go then?” Demi prompted him.
“Yes, yes, I’ll take your bags,” Arthur said, deftly taking the trolley from her and grateful for the direction.
“Do you live far?”
“No, not far really. Twenty minutes in a cab.”
“Good, because Logan needs to eat,” Demi explained. At the mention of food, Logan immediately perked up.
“Cheeseburger!” he cried.
“Cheeseburger?” Arthur queried, dropping Demi the playful look he’d given her in his youth.
“I promised him that if he behaved on the flight he could have a cheeseburger,” Demi admitted, feeling embarrassed.
“Well then, we’d better make good on that promise,” Arthur smiled as he weaved his way through the crowds with the trolley before him, Demi and his son trailing behind.
####
The cab journey was awkward because Logan, exhausted from the excitement of the flight, promptly fell asleep as soon as they sat down.
“He seems a nice kid,” Arthur commented.
“He’s the best,” Demi smiled proudly.
“You’ve done a great job with him,” Arthur continued, feeling like an idiot to be saying something when his own part had been not
hing at all.
“Thanks for that,” he added lamely.
“I had help,” Demi said modestly, immediately hating herself for doing so. She shouldn’t say things to make Arthur feel better about what he did.
Just Like Heaven Page 12
