by Marie Landry
He laughed softly and winked at me before turning back to Roy. I felt bad for a second because I’d almost forgotten he was there. I guess Nicholas really was that irresistible, I thought with a grin of my own.
“Let me get this over with so I can leave you two lovebirds alone and get back to my rounds,” Roy said, opening the file and rifling through the pages inside.
“The new form of chemotherapy is working.” He paused for a second to let that sink in. “Your blood cell counts are slowly beginning to even out. I think that if we continue treatment as we are, and if there are no unexpected complications, you could be in remission by Christmas.”
I clapped my hand over my mouth to smother the cry of shock that wanted to escape. I looked at Nicholas, and almost laughed when I saw his wide eyes and his mouth hanging open.
“That’s not all,” Roy said, laughing at our reactions. “The treatments are working so well that we’re going to be able to let you out of the hospital once a week starting next week. I know it’s not much, but it’s definitely better than nothing, and at least you’ll get away from here for a few hours.”
“Remission…Christmas…” I looked at Nicholas when he spoke and saw tears glistening on his lashes. “I don’t know what to say, Doc,” he said after a minute, his voice cracking with emotion. He held out his hand and Roy shook it firmly, cupping it with both his hands. “Thank you.”
To my surprise, Roy’s cheeks actually turned a bit red. “Don’t thank me, you’re the one doing all the hard work. Besides, you’re my best patient and you deserve some time out of here after being cooped up for so long. I’ll leave you two alone for now. I know how you like your sunny days. I’ll be by later to check in.”
After Roy left, I lay down on the bed with Nicholas, and he wrapped his arms around me. “This is our best blue sky day in a long time,” I said. “Before you know it, we’ll be spending them running and playing outside, and the cancer will be nothing but a distant memory.”
Nicholas nodded in agreement. “You know, as awful as all this has been, it’s taught us lessons about strength, faith, and love that some people won’t learn in their entire lifetime. People take so much for granted, but I don’t think we ever will again.” He tilted my face up and kissed me gently on the lips.
The sun slanted into the room, casting a pale glow over the bed, illuminating his face and making the darker blue flecks in his eyes stand out. He was so beautiful it made my heart ache, and he was mine. Sometimes it was still hard to believe.
He chuckled suddenly, and I looked at him with raised brows. “Sorry, I was thinking about what I just said. I wish we didn’t have to go through all this pain in order to learn those lessons.”
I laughed softly. “Hopefully next time we need to learn a lesson, we’ll find a simpler, more painless way. Something that doesn’t take so long and leave us both completely drained.”
“Absolutely. And hopefully it won’t be for a while. I don’t think I can handle more lessons any time soon.”
“Me either.”
I snuggled into Nicholas’s arms, and we spent the rest of our perfect blue sky morning watching the faint sunlight cast its glow over the city.
CHAPTER 18
Spring and summer seemed like a million years ago—like a cherished photograph or a favourite movie playing in my mind. Every moment spent with Nicholas, Daisy, Sam, Maggie, and Vince, everything we had done, everything I had learned, felt like another lifetime.
Life was divided into two segments: before Nicholas’s illness and after diagnosis. The ‘after’ seemed to drag on endlessly, and even when there was a possible end in sight—the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel—it still seemed a long way off.
October rolled on and swept into November. The vibrant autumn colours faded quickly as the leaves fluttered to the ground, leaving the trees looking barren and naked. Our blue sky days became fewer as the sky was stained a cold, steely gray and rain fell almost daily.
On the days it didn’t rain, it was too chilly for Nicholas to go out, so there would be no more walks in the garden for us. The skeletal trees outside swayed in a biting breeze, and on most mornings the ground was covered in a light layer of frost.
Nicholas got better with every passing week. His blood cell levels continued to work their way back to normal, and it soon looked like Doctor Roy’s prediction that Nicholas would be better by Christmas was going to be right.
As promised, Roy let Nicholas out of the hospital once a week. Daisy and Sam—who were now as inseparable as Nicholas and I were—would come to meet us and help me bundle Nicholas in warm clothes before wheeling him to the car.
The first day, we were reluctant to stray too far from the hospital, so we went for a drive, stopping at a diner for lunch so Nicholas could have a break from the hospital food. The next week Nicholas begged us to take him home, and since he was looking better, we agreed.
While I hovered nearby, Nicholas walked around his house as if seeing it for the first time. He touched the framed pictures on the mantle, murmuring quietly to himself, before moving on to study the artwork on the walls—several pieces were Daisy’s work—then wrapped himself in a blanket and sat in his favourite rocking chair by the fire.
“Some days I feel a thousand years old,” he told me as I sat on the floor, resting my head on his knee. He played idly with my hair, running his fingers through the loose strands before letting his hands trail gently down my cheeks, over my lips and eyelids and forehead, as if memorizing my face by touch.
“I look back on my life and it seems so long at times,” he said. “My mother’s illness and death, feeling like I had to grow up quickly to be strong for my dad. I’ve always enjoyed my life, and always made a point to revel in the good, the positive, and not dwell on the negative or the sad things that happen. But I always felt like I was waiting for…something more, I guess. Then there you were, and I knew what I’d been waiting for. Everything fell into place.”
His eyes were so full of love it was almost staggering, and my breath caught in my throat. He reached down to pull me into his lap, opening the blanket up and wrapping it around us both.
At times like that, Nicholas still seemed too good to be true. He had to be a figment of my imagination; it had been dormant for so many years, and now it was working in overdrive, creating this seemingly perfect man who couldn’t possibly be real. But he was real, and it occurred to me that sometimes things didn’t need to have complicated explanations.
In fact, some things didn’t need an explanation at all. I’d complicated and overanalyzed things my entire life, and made everything more difficult than it needed to be, but no more. Nicholas loved me and I loved him. Why couldn’t it be that simple? Daisy and I were going to start a business together. It wasn’t going to be easy, but together we’d make the challenge part of the adventure. Nicholas would get better and we would spend the rest of our lives together, happy and in love.
Daisy had even admitted to me that she and Sam had made things more complicated than they needed to be, and had wasted all those years apart. I was going to learn from that one big mistake and not let fear of the unknown hold me back. Life wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t all blue sky days, but it was what you made of it.
I knew there would be times when I’d have doubts and fears about things that were happening in my life, and maybe even about my relationship with Nicholas, but I wouldn’t let them paralyze me the way I had my entire life.
The fear of failure had led me down a path of isolation and loneliness. I couldn’t blame anyone but myself for that, because it had been my choice to live that way.
But I had broken away from that old life by coming to Riverview. Daisy was always telling me how much courage I had for starting over, and I was finally starting to believe her. Some people spent their entire lives stuck in a rut, but I had done something about it. I had broken away from the person I’d been, and my old life felt like a distant memory, a dream that was vague and faded a
round the edges. Now, life was better than the best dream imaginable and I was going to revel in it.
“I never believed in fate before,” I said to Nicholas, nuzzling his neck and burrowing against him so I was as close as possible. “It seemed like such a fanciful idea, you know? But I know now that fate brought me here. You said everything fell into place when you met me, and I feel the same way. You turned my world from dark gray skies to the brightest blue.”
I looked into his eyes, so impossibly blue that even on cloudy days, I had my own personal blue sky every time I looked at him. “I don’t know how I ever lived without you,” I said. “What would I do without you now?”
Nicholas’s lips curved into a small smile and he kissed me. “You’ll never have to find out. I promise.”
*****
Nicholas’s promise to me seemed like a sweet dream the next week when a visitor came to see a family member in the cancer ward and brought more than just a bouquet of flowers. Within a couple of days, the patient was in isolation with a cold, but it hadn’t been contained quickly enough because two others patients, including Nicholas, were left in bed suffering with aches, pains, and sniffles.
I wanted to wring the neck of the person who was stupid enough to visit someone in the hospital—especially a cancer patient—when he had a cold. It was bad enough to be sick under normal circumstances, but because of the cancer and the chemotherapy, it could put Nicholas’s recovery in jeopardy.
As always, Nicholas put up a brave front and would smile at me from his bed while I sat nearby in my new wardrobe of disposable hospital gown, booties, and facemask. Visitors were limited to one per patient; I had to be checked regularly by Roy, and wear the required gear on every visit. Some of my visiting privileges were temporarily suspended, so my hours with Nicholas were limited to four per day.
I continued to read to Nicholas and tell him what was going on at home, since the others couldn’t come visit him until he was out of isolation. He loved hearing about Daisy’s and my plans for the gallery, and about our progress, so I told him in great detail just to pass the time.
Every few days I brought new pictures for him, and he looked at them eagerly, exclaiming over my talent and telling me how proud he was. I knew he desperately wanted to be part of the rebuilding process for the gallery itself, but since he couldn’t, he would draw up little designs for me to give Sam so that he could make his mark on the gallery from a distance.
By mid-November, Nicholas’s symptoms grew to include a fever.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, patting my hand. “I always get a fever at some point when I have a cold. It’s no big deal. I’m sure it’ll be gone by tomorrow.”
I wasn’t so sure. I knew the cold had set him back in his recovery. The dark circles under his eyes had returned and were more prominent than ever; he wasn’t eating much, and most days he was too weak to get out of bed without help. At my reluctance to leave, he assured me that he would be fine and told me to go home and help Daisy with the gallery plans.
I hated to leave him, but I knew he needed his rest, and my restricted visiting hours were almost over anyway. I made him promise to call me if he needed anything, and I stopped at the nurse’s station and had them make the same promise.
I pictured Nicholas’s pale face and bruised-looking eyes the entire way home. He had come so far and had fought so hard; it didn’t seem fair that something as seemingly small as a common cold could cause such a setback. Roy had looked grim on his last few visits, but wasn’t saying much. That had me even more worried because normally he was pretty forthcoming with information.
When I got home Daisy told me that my mother had called a few times, and after several minutes of hesitation, I called her back. It was more of the usual—had I decided to come home yet, had I thought any more about going back to school, what was I going to do with my life, and on and on.
She didn’t once ask how Nicholas was doing, and it was then I knew there was no hope of ever having any sort of normal relationship with her. I couldn’t cut her out of my life completely because she was my mother, but I had lost any desire to have a close relationship with her. Daisy and I had decided not to tell her about the gallery until it was open and hopefully successful, so we could avoid her biting comments and sarcasm.
My dad knew, though, and was so pleased Daisy and I were working together. He had told me he couldn’t wait to see it—and me—and would help any way he could. He also promised not to tell my mother—a promise he must have kept, otherwise I’m sure it would have been the first words out of my mother’s mouth.
It made me sad that things had to be this way, but I had reconciled myself to the fact that sometimes that’s just how things worked out. I was done trying to please her, done attempting to live up to the impossible standards she set, and I refused to live wondering if she would approve, what she thought, or what she would say to hurt me next. It just didn’t matter anymore.
I was so tired after my conversation with my mother, I decided to call it an early night. I said goodnight to Daisy and headed to bed.
*****
I was sound asleep, dreaming of showing Nicholas through the finished gallery. Daisy’s paintings and my photographs adorned the walls, while dazzling sunlight poured through the windows; it illuminated our artwork and the faces of the people I loved who had turned out to support us.
Daisy’s voice broke through the silence, jarring me, and I looked around the gallery searching for her face.
She continued to call my name, and when she shook me, I jerked awake, letting out a little cry of surprise when I realized she was sitting on the edge of my bed, her hand on my shoulder.
“Em. Emma, wake up. You have a phone call.”
I groaned and held out my hand for the portable phone, but felt something much smaller. I opened my eyes a crack and saw Daisy’s cell phone in the palm of my hand. “Hello?” I said into the tiny cell, thinking that maybe I was still dreaming.
“Emma, honey, it’s Sam.” His voice carried a sense of urgency that made me sit up quickly and grope unconsciously in the dark for Daisy’s hand. “I’ve been trying to get you all night, but the line’s been busy so I finally thought to try Daisy’s cell phone. Emma, the hospital called me and said Nicholas woke up coughing blood, and has a fever of a hundred and four. Do you think you can come to the hospital?”
I was already out of bed, signaling silently to Daisy to get dressed before starting to pull my pants on with my free hand. “We’ll be there as soon as we can. Tell Nicholas to hang on and I’ll be right there.” I snapped the cell phone shut and tucked it in the pocket of my jeans.
I ran downstairs, shoving my head and arms into a shirt as I went. I remembered that I had been using the wall phone earlier that night when I talked to my mother. I ran into the kitchen and looked at the phone that was lying slightly askew on the cradle. When I had slammed the phone down after my conversation with my mother, the impact must have made it bounce back off the hook, and that’s why Sam hadn’t been able to get in touch with me.
“Damn it!” I yelled, nearly throwing the phone across the room. Anger and fear warred inside me, turning my stomach sour.
Wiping tears from my eyes with an impatient hand, I knocked the phone back into place, grabbed Daisy’s car keys from the kitchen table, and met her in the front hall. Daisy took the keys from me, and we both broke into a run to reach her car.
Having broken the speed limit and several other laws to get to the hospital, Daisy and I arrived less than an hour later. We got off the elevator and I ran straight for Nicholas’s room. As we suited up in the disposable garb from a trolley in the hallway, I peered in the window built into the door. Sam was standing on one side of the bed, and Doctor Roy was on the other, listening to Nicholas’s chest with a stethoscope and making marks on a chart.
When Roy stepped out of the way and I got my first look at Nicholas, my heart sank. He looked so much worse than he had just a few hours before when I’d
left the hospital. His haggard appearance—sunken cheeks and eyes, gray skin, dark purple circles under his eyes—made him appear older, and he looked small and fragile lying there in his hospital bed.
I stepped into the room. When Nicholas saw me, he tried to say my name but nothing came out so he held out his hand.
I crossed the room to stand by his bed. “Hi baby. How are you feeling?” Now that I was closer, I could see the thin sheen of sweat that covered his brow and beaded on his upper lip.
Nicholas looked at Roy, who looked almost as weary as Nicholas. “Nicholas has a lung infection. Because his system is run down from the chemo, the infection seems to be spreading fast. We won’t know more until we get the latest set of tests back, but we’ve started him on drugs to fight the infection.”
Nicholas was watching my face closely, his eyes appearing huge in his thin, ashen face. This wasn’t good and we both knew it. What Roy hadn’t said was that an infection like this could kill Nicholas.
I was afraid to speak. I didn’t trust that my voice would work past the lump that had formed in my throat. Not caring that the floor was cold and hard, or that Roy, Sam, and Daisy were watching with worried eyes, I knelt on the floor and lowered my head onto Nicholas’s chest. I closed my eyes and listened to his slow but steady heartbeat as he moved his hand in a gentle caress through my hair and over my face. With every raspy breath he took, I tried harder and harder not to cry.
*****
Almost a week passed, and Nicholas’s infection continued to get worse. Roy temporarily stopped the chemo treatments so the drugs for the infection could do their job.
Only they weren’t doing their job.
Nicholas was on oxygen all the time now, and Roy was beginning to look frantic. Even when we reassured him that we knew he was doing his best, he told us repeatedly that he was doing everything he could. Roy had another doctor take over his patients in Riverview, and he moved to the doctors’ temporary living quarters in the hospital so he could be on call for Nicholas at all times. I had known before that he was invested in Nicholas’s recovery, but he was going so far beyond anything any of us expected.
