How Sweet It Is (22 page)

I suppose she hopes this line will cause him to pop open his eyes and jump off the bed. He does neither.

I watch the squiggly lines move across the machine. I never know what to call this piece of equipment, although Sally has supplied me with the proper term many times.

Flashbacks of my days at the Atlanta Medical Center come to me. I woke up alone in my hospital room and for a second felt nothing but calm. I thought I must have died and that this was heaven. Then a nurse entered and suddenly the horror of what had happened crept in around me. I asked if Lucas was all right; I was so naïve.

The door swings open; Zack enters the room. In his typical style, he smiles at my aunt and me.

“How is he?” Regena Lorraine whispers. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her whisper before.

“Still unconscious.”

“Has he been conscious any since he fell?”

Zack shakes his head.

I know Zack must be thinking of the girlfriend he lost. His parents died within months of each other when he was nineteen. His father was in a logging accident and then his mother had a massive heart attack. In this whole world, Zack’s only close relative is his brother. I want to wrap my arms around Zack and give him a hug. Me—the one who lately has made it a priority to avoid him.

Zack says, “Dr. Martin said they should have the results of the MRI soon. I was just talking with him.”

“What are they afraid of?” My aunt is bold to ask.

Zack speaks from dry lips. His words come out shaky. “Bleeding on his brain.”

We stand in silence, and then my aunt says she must go. She promised to bring dinner over to Butterfly Ormandy, a woman who just had knee surgery. “I hate to leave,” she tells us apologetically as she places her tote bag over her shoulder. “But I promised I’d help out with a meal, and this woman was a dear friend of Ernest’s.”

We tell her that we understand. Zack offers to drive me home later.

“Butterfly was there for me when I went through a cold, lonely time,” my aunt says.

I nod and think how nice it is that my aunt has such good friends, even if they do have the most peculiar names.

thirty

A
tall nurse with stunning features enters Jonas’s room. I bet every man loves to have her as his nurse. I note her blue eyes and the thick blond hair dangling over her back. She even smells good, like the roses on our farm in Tifton after a rainstorm. Jonas needs to wake up so that he can admire her, maybe even sing her a few lines from the Eagles. If only he knew what an opportunity he’s missing.

The door flies open; a young doctor bounds into the room with the vivaciousness of Giovanni, a chart under his arm. I sense Zack’s discomfort as the nurse and doctor talk quietly and briefly, hovering at the foot of Jonas’s bed.

The doctor looks over Jonas’s chart and then turns to Zack. “Your brother’s test results should be back soon.” With a pat to Zack’s shoulder, the doctor leaves as energetically as he entered. I wonder what kind of vitamins he takes.

When the nurse finishes taking Jonas’s temperature, Zack pulls over a stool for me to sit on. He sits on a matching stool close to the head of his brother’s bed. He takes his eyes away from Jonas to look at me. “Thanks for coming.”

“He is going to be okay.” I hope I sound certain, but my shaking knees belie the words.

“He would do anything for anyone.” There is admiration in Zack’s voice.

“He’s a lot like you, then,” I say with feeling. Here I am, the Queen of Avoidance, vowing to keep away from this man, and suddenly, I am letting my heart speak for me.

Zack says, “I don’t know if that’s always true.”

“Oh, it is.”

“I balk at being inconvenienced as much as the next person.”

“You’re always there for the kids.”

“Yeah, but if you look at me real close, you’ll see that I’m ready to spit nails when they have an emergency when it’s time to go home. I’m hungry and tired and just want to get to my house, turn on the TV, and watch something mindless while I eat dinner. Then comes the phone call from some officer or therapist to let me know I have to come pick up somebody somewhere.”

“So you’re admitting the kids can aggravate you?”

“You knew that,” he tells me with a slight smile. “I told you they could one of the first times we talked.”

That’s true; I recall that conversation now. That was the afternoon I was ready to never set foot in The Center again.

A murky voice whispers, “You two?”

Zack and I both turn to see that Jonas has opened his eyes.

Zack’s smile fills the whole room. “Hi.”

“Hey, Buddy.” Jonas manages a lopsided grin.

“Hi, Jonas,” I say, and touch one of his fingers.

He eyes his brother and then me. “You two need to get together one of these nights.” His speech is slurred, but his smile is abundant.

Zack ignores the suggestion, clearly relieved to see that Jonas is alert. He adjusts the stool so that he is closer to his brother’s face. Gently, Zack says, “You doing okay?”

“Yes. Are you doing okay?”

Zack smiles again. “I’m fine. I’m worried about you.”

“I’ve been sleeping, Buddy. Real comfortable.”

“Really?”

“Don’t worry about me, Buddy. I’m not working today.”

“I can see that. Next time you don’t feel like working, take a sick day.”

“A sick day?” Jonas pauses, considers the advice. “I’ll take a sick day.”

“Don’t go jumping off roofs,” Zack warns, his voice laced with warmth.

“I’ll just choose a day that is sick.”

“That’s right.”

After a moment, he asks, “Which one?”

“What?”

“Monday is a sick day? Tuesday is a sick day?”

“No, Jonas.”

Jonas continues as Zack rolls his eyes and smiles at me. “Wednesday is a sick day? Thursday is a sick day? Friday is a sick day? Saturday is a sick day?”

We wait and then Zack says, “How about Sunday?”

“Sunday is the Lord’s day. Not a sick day.”

“That’s right.”

“Read,” Jonas tells his brother.

I wonder what he means. Zack opens the drawer of the bedside table and pulls out a navy blue Bible with the Gideons logo stamped on the cover. I watch as Zack flips through the pages, going from Old Testament to New. He stops turning pages and then in a clear voice reads, “ ‘Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.’ ” When he finishes, Jonas closes his eyes and I recognize that this passage is the one Jonas tells me to live by, the one he claims he fills his mind with.

We are wrapped in a beautiful silence except for the noise in the hallways, doctors being paged and carts rolling. This is life, I think. The beauty of a meal, a word, a moment—and then reality kicks in and you realize you’ve still got to deal with dirty dishes or heartache or fear. Maybe reality is those brief moments, and the larger blocks of time are just insignificant inconveniences.

Zack returns the Bible to the drawer.

“You’re gentle with the kids,” I say softly. “But with Jonas you’re something else.”

He looks at me. “What am I?”

Genuine, terrific, a hero, someone to swoon over.
You better let somebody love you, before it’s too late
. “You’re the best you.”

“The best me?” He starts to laugh and I hold up my hand.

“People who laugh at compliments are insecure, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.” He tucks the sheet around his brother, then shifts his gaze to me.

“So?”

“Say thank you,” Jonas instructs him, his eyes still shut. “You’re supposed to say thank you to Deirdre.”

We listen to a voice paging a doctor over the PA.

Zack whispers, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

I think Jonas is smiling, too. I touch his shoulder. “Jonas?”

He is smiling, but his snoring lets me know that it is his dreams that are making him smile.

————

Suddenly, I am aware that it is still Monday afternoon and I have a cooking class to teach. I walk into the hallway so I won’t disturb Jonas. Then I dial Miriam’s number from my cell phone. I explain why I’ll be late.

Of course, she already knows about Jonas’s fall and says that the kids are in the fellowship hall making cards for him, and not to worry.

“Are you there alone with them?” I ask. Being alone with those eight kids is a challenge no human should ever have to endure. Even if you do own a pair of green tennis shoes.

“Robert and Rhonda are here. I called them to come over since I knew Zack would be at the hospital. They got here just a few minutes ago.”

Jonas is important to me, but I also have a responsibility to The Center and to Miriam. “I’ll be there soon,” I say.

“No,” says Miriam. Firmly she adds, “You need to stay there.”

“I do?”

“Zack needs someone.” Then she says she has to go. The kids have run out of red construction paper. “They all want to make red cards since red is Jonas’s favorite color.”

“It is?” I ask, but she has already hung up.

Red? I never knew.

thirty-one

T
he kids from The Center come to see Jonas, one by one, escorted by Miriam and Robert into Jonas’s room. They are allowed only to enter his room, drop off their card, and then exit. This could be a disaster, I think, but the kids are well-behaved. Lisa gives Zack a hug, and Dougy says that he is sure Jonas is going to be back fixing leaks by tomorrow.

Jonas sleeps through their visit, which is a shame. He would have reveled in the attention. The cards the children made rest on the window ledge, a row of bright red. Miriam says she found a few more sheets of Jonas’s favorite color stored at the bottom of a cabinet in one of the preschool rooms.

Next, Simon Gibbons, the pastor of the church, steps in for a visit. He tells Zack that Jonas is “a breath of fresh air.” Just before he leaves, Jonas’s neighbor arrives. A mousy woman with a French manicure, she says that Jonas is the best neighbor anyone could ever have. “He takes good care of my plumbing,” she says as she places a vase of pink lilies and yellow snapdragons on the window sill.

When the visitors are gone, the room’s only noise is the soft murmur of the machines.

Zack looks at the clock on the wall and says that we could go to the lobby and get something to eat. It’s five after seven.

I sit on a cushy chair while Zack gets us coffee and sandwiches from a vending machine. The hospital has no cafeteria. The Atlanta Medical Center it is not.

I press my fingers to my temples, trying to come to grips with Jonas’s fall. What was he doing on the roof of the church? He looks so much older lying in the hospital bed. How old is he? Forty? How old is Zack? I feel about ninety right now, and tired.

Beyond where I sit, there is a painting on the wall of a cluster of fruit displayed on a wooden table. I see a bunch of yellow bananas, Muscatine grapes, three Granny Smith apples, four figs, and over to the edge, a lemon. The lemon reminds me that Aunt Regena Lorraine still owes me the story behind the lemon in the fridge.

When Zack sets the Styrofoam cups of coffee and the sandwiches on the small table in front of us, I note his worried eyes.

I peel the cellophane away from the ham sandwich. My hands feel too heavy to lift the bread to my mouth. “I’m not hungry.”

Zack adds sugar to his coffee. He pauses and looks at me. “You know? I don’t think I am either.”

Just for something to say, I toss out, “Jonas told you a lot about me.”

“Apparently he told you about me, too. The clever thing is he never mentioned our names to each other.”

“Were you engaged to Abby?” I surprise myself by asking this.

Zack looks at his shoes, then up at me. “No. We weren’t at that stage yet.”

I can tell there is still pain piercing his heart when he thinks of her. She was lucky to have known him, I think, lucky to have held his heart in her hands.

Zack says, “We were both in grad school. Both twenty-four.” He sips his coffee. Looks into it. “She died a month before graduation. She had leukemia. That was eight years ago, but I still…”