Blue Saturn (30 page)

For her, I will be.

I’m walking her through the house, toward the large staircase to go to my bedroom, when I hear the front door open and close. I turn my head to see Gavin walk in. He’s been for a run.

“Yo Mike...whoa. You bringin’ patients home now?”

Lyndsay hears his voice and laboriously lifts her head from my shoulder, looking out behind me.

“Hi Gavin,” she says, her words melting together.

“Lyndsay?” Gavin says as Lyndsay’s head falls back against my shoulder. “What’s going on, Mike?” Gavin is hot on my tail as I carry Lyndsay up the stairs.

“Lyndsay is sick Gav.” I get to the top of the stairs and head straight for my room. I turn around and look at Gavin. “Can you pull the covers on my bed back?” I ask him.

Gavin steps past me and does just that. Then he stands back as I lower Lyndsay down. He watches as I remove her shoes and socks.

“She feels warm,” I say. “Should I take her pants off her?”

Lyndsay groans and rolls onto her side.

Gavin shakes his head. “They’re light track pants. She shouldn’t get too hot. Just keep the covers off her until she cools down.”

I step away from the bed and look down at her. She looks so vulnerable, so childlike, curled up on my huge bed. It takes every bit of my strength not to climb in behind her and pull her to my body and hold onto her.

“She has cancer,” Gavin finally says.

“No. She had cancer. It’s gone, along with her right ovary. Today was her last treatment.” I bring him up to speed with what happened at the hospital. Talking about it seems to help me deal with it. Each time I repeat Lyndsay’s words that she is going to be okay, I feel calmer. Like saying it enough times will make it a reality.

Gavin lets out a long breath between his teeth. “So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to wait for her to wake up and then...then I’m going to try my damn hardest not to lose her again.”

I can hear a phone ringing, but it’s not mine. It’s coming from next to the bed. It must be Lyndsay’s phone. I ignore it as it’s muffled and is unlikely to wake Lyndsay up. It stops ringing and almost immediately starts ringing again.

I decide to answer it. Whoever it is, they’re desperate to get in contact with Lyndsay. It might be something important.

The caller ID says “Aunty B”. I decide not to answer it, but then quickly change my mind knowing that her aunt has most likely been keeping an eye out for her and is worried because she hasn’t arrived home yet.

I take the phone out to the first floor landing and answer it. “Hello.”

“Who is this?” Her voice is stern.

“It’s Mike Greene.” I brace for the reaction.

“You,” she says, her voice bitter. “Where is Lyndsay?”

“She’s at my house. I brought her home from the hospital.”

“What were you doing at the hospital?”

I give her the quick version of events.

“You should’ve bought her home. She needs to be around people who care for her and love her. Not around people who are obscene and live only to hurt.”

Wait a minute, what did she just say? Did she call me obscene? I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but I’ve never been called obscene. That must mean only one thing. She knows exactly what I did to Lyndsay.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Beatrice. But Lyndsay came home with me willingly. And I am caring for her.” Well, I’m watching her sleep, like a crazy stalker. As soon as she lets me know she needs something, I’ll be here for her.

“You listen to me young man. You bring Lyndsay home right now.”

“I won’t do that because she’s too tired to be moved. She’s sleeping soundly now and it’d be cruel to wake her up.”

“Bring her home!” she shrieks at me.

My voice hardens. “I will bring her home when she is ready.”

“You think you’re so wonderful with all your music and money and adoring fans. Well let me tell you something. You are selfish and arrogant and think only of yourself. You have no idea how much you hurt her. You didn’t see her cry herself to sleep night after night. You didn’t see the heartbreak on her face. You didn’t try to apologise. You just pushed her away and disappeared. Well let me tell you something, young man. You do not deserve anyone even half as sweet as Lyndsay.”

“You’re right Beatrice. The old me doesn’t deserve Lyndsay. But I’m a different man now. I’ve changed. I’ve learned from my mistakes. And right now, I am proving that to Lyndsay by caring for her while she recovers from her chemo. And when Lyndsay is ready, I will deliver her home to you.” And I end the call. I do not need to hear any more of her tirade. I turn the phone off and go back into the bedroom and look down at Lyndsay again.

I imagine how she must’ve felt, finding me the way she did. If the roles had been reversed, and I had been the one to feel that level of betrayal, would I be willing to forgive? Could I give my healed heart back to the person who had ultimately taken it and crushed it to pieces?

It all depended. It depended on how hard Lyndsay was willing to fight to win me back. What sacrifices would she be willing to make to prove her unwavering devotion to me? What reassurances could she give me that my heart would be safe with her if given a second chance?

It’s not enough just to say I love her. I have to prove it. If actions speak louder than words, I’m about to become a very busy man.

26.

I wake with a start when I hear a loud bang. I sit up on the couch in my room and turn toward the bed. In the soft light coming in through the window, I can see Lyndsay standing near the wall.

“Lyndsay, are you okay?” I ask her.

“Where am I?” Her voice sounds panicked.

“You’re in my bedroom,” I answer.

“Who are you?”

I stand up from the couch. “It’s Mike. I brought you home from the hospital.”

I can hear her laboured breathing as I walk toward the light switch and flick it on. I adjust the dimmer so that the light doesn’t hurt Lyndsay’s eyes.

Sometime during the past hours, while I’ve been asleep on the couch, she’s removed her pants and now she stands in my room in only her underwear and a t-shirt. Her scarf is lying on the pillow and she moves her hands to cover her head.

“I wasn’t sure where I was,” she says as she looks back to the bed. She walks to the side and reaches across for her scarf. “I wanted to get a drink.”

“I can get you a drink. Do you want water or…”

She cuts me short. “Water please. Lots of water.”

“No worries. Wait here.”

“May I use your bathroom?” she asks and it strikes me as an odd question to ask.

“Of course you can. It’s…”  I point toward the bathroom, knowing she knows where it is and wondering why she’s asking me if she can use it. I shared that bathroom with her for months.

“Thanks. I’m...I get a little bit confused. Sorry.” She turns toward the bathroom and I watch as she enters and closes the door behind her.

It’s just after midnight. Lyndsay has been asleep for thirteen hours. I wonder if she’ll go back to sleep or if she’ll stay awake for a while now because I am desperate to talk to her.

I had to fight with Gavin so that I could sleep in my own bedroom. Fair enough, I originally had planned on sleeping next to Lyndsay in my bed, but Gavin and Jasmine both said that was a bad idea. Gavin suggested that I sleep in Lyndsay’s old room, the bedroom across the hall from mine, but I wasn’t happy with that. I needed to be close to her in case she needed anything. Or as it seems, she became disoriented and wasn’t sure where she was.

I grab a two litre bottle of water from the fridge and a large glass and head back upstairs.

When I walk into my bedroom, Lyndsay is sitting up, resting against the pillows. I pour a glass of water and hand the glass to her. She takes it from me, her hands trembling slightly and drinks the entire glass of water in one go. She holds the glass out to me.

“Would you like some more?” I ask, putting my hand out to take the glass from her.

“Yes please. I’m thirsty.”

I refill the glass and again she drinks it in one stretch.

When she finishes the glass, I ask her if she’d like another.

“No thank you. I’ll go back to sleep now.” She reaches for the covers to the bed and pulls them up over her. “I’m tired.”

“You sleep for as long as you need to.”

“Are you going to stay in the room all night?” she asks.

“Yes, unless you don’t want me to.”

“No, stay,” she says. “I shouldn’t be left alone in an unfamiliar place. Heaven forbid I decide to go for a walk and fall off the balcony.”

I smile and place the bottle of water and glass on the bedside table. “Goodnight Lyndsay.”

“Hmmm,” she moans and its moments later that she’s fast asleep.

I stand next to the bed and look down at her. This isn’t the Lyndsay I know. The Lyndsay I knew and loved would never have in her right mind slept for thirteen hours straight and then require more after five minutes of being awake. The Lyndsay I knew would challenge me to a run. The Lyndsay I knew would jump on the bed or play with Mikey. The Lyndsay I knew would smile at me when she knew I was cranky, because she knew I’d smile along with her.

But this Lyndsay, this Lyndsay lying in my bed is a shadow of the former Lyndsay.

But damn if that makes me love her any less.

*****

“Dad, wake up.”

Mikey is shaking my arm. I open my eyes and realise that I’m asleep across the end of my bed. I barely remember lying down.

“Hey buddy, what’s going on?”

“Where has Lyndsay’s hair gone?”

I sit upright very quickly, my vision temporarily blurring and look at Lyndsay. She is still asleep and her scarf has come off her head again.

“You know this is Lyndsay?” I ask. I’m surprised he recognises her.

“Of course it’s Lyndsay. Lyndsay is the only girl who sleeps in your bed. And she smells the same, like lollypops or something.”

I smile because Lyndsay always did smell sweet. I always thought it was her shampoo but it can’t be that because she hasn’t been shampooing her hair of late. It must be her body wash.

“Why did Lyndsay cut all her hair off?” Mikey asks.

I sigh and lift Mikey up onto my lap. “Lyndsay didn’t cut her hair off. She got sick and the medicine the doctor gave her to make her better made her hair fall out. But it’ll grow back because she doesn’t have to have any of the yucky medicine anymore.”

Mikey looks back to Lyndsay who is still sleeping soundly. She’s in the same position she was in last night when she fell back to sleep.

“Is Lyndsay coming to live with us again?”

I slowly shake my head. “No.”

“Is she going to be our friend again?”

“I hope so buddy.”

“So do I. I miss her. She was so much fun all the time. She never had to work or anything. She just played with me all day.”

“Yeah, she was pretty fun.”

“And she was ticklish.”

I laugh recalling all the times I tickled her until she could barely draw breath.

“Dad, do you think the medicine has made Lyndsay not be ticklish anymore?”

“Nar, she’ll still be ticklish. She’ll still be just the same. But for now, she’s very tired and needs to sleep. Go on down stairs, I’ll be down in a minute to get you some breakfast.”

Mikey jumps off my lap and runs downstairs.

I take a minute to look at Lyndsay. In the light of the new day, she doesn’t look as frail as I thought she did yesterday. How I saw her yesterday is completely different to how I’m seeing her right now. Maybe it was the shock, I don’t know.

She’s thinner now than when she was a year ago, but that’s to be expected considering all she’s been through. But she still has a certain fullness to her body. A strength that reassures me that she will bounce back from this, and for her sake, I hope very quickly. I lean down over her and gently kiss her cheek.

I once made a vow to Lyndsay. I didn’t make this vow in a church in front of a priest with all our friends and family there to witness it. I made it silently to her, each and every day. I vowed to Lyndsay that I would love her, in good times and bad, in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, to love and to cherish, to have and to hold, until death do us part. And if I’d had the chance, I would’ve made the vow public. I would’ve yelled it from the rooftops. Now, as I look down at her, I know in my heart I will do anything at all to make sure she knows I have every intention of fulfilling that vow to her.

*****
 

Gavin has insisted I go for a run. I’ve spent the last day and a half cooped up in the house waiting for Lyndsay to wake up. It’s dark now, just after nine at night. The streets are almost empty of traffic so I have the streets to myself. And I have time to think of all the things I need to tell Lyndsay. I want to tell her that I deserve another chance. I want to tell her that I love her still. I want to ask her to come back here to live with me so I can show her that I can make her happy again. But I also know I can’t put too much pressure on her. She’s been through a tough time and I know the last thing she’ll want is to put herself in a position where she will end up being hurt again. So I have to prove to her that I’m a completely changed man. Well, not completely changed. I still have some of my old personality traits, the good ones anyway. I have to make her realise just how much I still love her, without scaring her away.

And if I know Lyndsay, that’s not going to be an easy feat.

I run through the front door and straight upstairs. As I approach the top of the stairs, I hear laughter. It brings an instant smile to my face because I recognise the laugh as Lyndsay’s.

I walk into my bedroom and hear Jasmine’s voice. “If you weren’t recovering from cancer, I’d kick-box you right in your remaining ovary. Why didn’t you call me?”

Lyndsay is lying down on the bed. She has her t-shirt pulled up a bit and Jasmine is looking down at a scar on Lyndsay’s tummy. It’s below the belly button, slightly to one side. It’s thin and white and is about ten centimetres long.

Jasmine lightly runs her finger over the length of it, making Lyndsay laugh.

“That tickles,” she says. Then her face becomes serious. “I wanted to call you,” Lyndsay says. “But I needed to...” She pulls her shirt down over her tummy and when Jasmine lies down next to her, Lyndsay sees me standing at the doorway.

“You needed to what?” Jasmine asks.

Lyndsay looks at me and Jasmine turns, following her gaze. I feel about an inch high knowing that I’ve interrupted their private conversation.

“Sorry,” I mutter.

Jasmine quickly stands up and puts her hands on her hips. She starts to say something but Lyndsay interrupts her.

“What have you been doing?” she asks.

I know she knows what I’ve been doing. I’m wearing a singlet and running shorts and runners and I’m dripping with sweat. It’s fairly obvious what I’ve been doing. But the Mike Greene Lyndsay knows couldn’t run a hundred meters if he tried without going into cardiac arrest.

“I’ve been for a run,” I answer.

“You? You’ve been running?” she asks, her voice giving away every bit of surprise she has. “That’s a sight I gotta see to believe.”

“Well,” I say as I step toward the bed, “when you’re feeling up to it, we’ll go for a run together.”

Lyndsay smiles and shakes her head. “I’m not going to be running any time soon, Mike.”

“It doesn’t have to be any time soon, just when you feel up to it.” I smile at her. “Can I get you anything?”

“You can get yourself a shower,” Jasmine says. “You stink.”

“You love it,” I say as I grab onto her and force her head to my armpits. “How long can you hold your breath, Jas?”

She screams and pushes me away. I give her a quick punch to the arm as I run to lock myself in the bathroom.

“I’ll get you for that,” Jasmine yells through the door to me.

The bedroom is quiet when I open the bathroom door. When I step through to the bedroom, Lyndsay is asleep again. Jasmine is sitting next to her on the bed, holding her hand. I realise that I’m not the only one who lost Lyndsay when she left, we all did. Gavin and Jasmine and Mikey have all suffered.

“I don’t know what you have planned, Greene,” Jasmine says, her voice low. “But if you hurt this girl again, I will personally remove your testicles. Do you understand me?”

I nod because I truly believe Jasmine is capable of following through on her threat. “I have no intention on hurting her again. It was never my intention in the first place.”

“Can I suggest something to you? Can I suggest that you give her time to heal? Be here for her as a friend and then, once she’s healthy again, let her come to you.”

“I don’t know if she’ll come to me though.”

“Well then, if she doesn’t you’ll know how she feels.”

“Lyndsay’s not like that. She’s very...” I think about everything she’s been through at the hands of her step-father and how her way of dealing with it was to shut everyone out. Even when she was in love with me, she resisted me with all her power. “She’s scared,” I finally say.

“She was scared the first time around. I wager you she will be terrified now.” Jasmine stands up and comes to me. “Listen to me Greene. Give her time.” Jasmine reaches up, plants a soft kiss on my cheek and leaves me. As much as I want to lie down next to Lyndsay to sleep, I go the spare room and grab a blanket off the bed and settle in for another uncomfortable night on the couch.

*****

She’s going to wake up soon. She’s been stirring and making funny little noises for a while. Her hand twitches, her fist closing and opening and then she rolls onto her back. Her hand reaches up and scratches her head and then her eyes open. She sees me sitting at the end of the bed and she closes her eyes and rolls onto her side again.

“Have you spent this entire time watching me sleep?” she says as a sleepy smile forms on her lips.

“Pretty much,” I answer honestly.

“I would’ve thought that a very important rock star like you would have far more important things to do.” Her eyes open and she rolls onto her back again.

“Making sure you’re okay is important.”

“I’m fine Mike, other than being really thirsty.” She sits up slowly and pours herself another glass of water. “I wish I could say I’m better than okay, but for now okay will have to do.”