Safe & Sound (5 page)

“She can’t be here.” The nurse pointed in my direction.

“Ma’am, I have to ask you to leave,” the security guard said. He started to move toward me and I burst into tears, unleashing the whole story going back to Sunday and Jay’s accident. When I was done, both the nurse and security guard looked at each other.

“Who can I call to vouch for this story?” he finally asked.

Apparently, someone in the room had a heart.

“Really?” I couldn’t make this up. “Officer Henry Connor.”

“Harry?”

“Ya. You know him?” I asked.

“Yes. I used to work with him until I retired. I took this gig part-time to keep me busy,” he said.

“That is all very touching, but she still can’t be here,” the nurse interjected.

“Harry and Jay are best friends.” I threw that in for good measure as he took out his phone.

He stepped out of the room while the nurse continued to glare in my direction. Apparently, dying husbands and true love was not her weak spot. A few minutes later the security guard reentered the room and handed me the phone.

“What the fuck is going on, Jill?” Harry yelled into the phone. “They should be dragging you out of that bed, handcuffing your ass and throwing you in jail!”

“I had to. It’s our last night together,” I whispered.

“I have convinced Jack to forget this whole thing ever happened, but he said there was a nurse who did not look like she was going to drop it,” he said in a calmer tone.

“You got that right,” I said.

“Well, you’ll have to work your magic on her.” He paused. “But seriously, Jill, what you did tonight was boarding on insane … but knowing Jay, he would have loved it. It’s probably what he would have done, but he would have gotten arrested, and I would be bailing his ass out of jail. You stay put until the morning. Peter and I will be by to say our good-byes.”

“Thank you, Harry.” I meant it more than he would know. I could see Jack leaning over and whispering something to the nurse.

“You’re welcome,” and with that he ended the conversation. I handed the phone back to Jack and he looked at the nurse. She looked from him to me and finally threw her hands up.

“I’m off in an hour. What do I care? That’s what I get for covering for Frannie tonight,” she muttered to herself and stormed out of the room.

Jack gave me one more look and tipped his hat and followed her out.

“That was close,” I whispered to Jay as I lay back down.

I lay there for a couple more hours before I heard more noises out in the hallway as the hospital came to life. At a little past seven in the morning, I got up and went to use the restroom and freshen up.

“Mrs. Greenfield, you here?” I heard a muffled voice call my name.

“I’m here,” I said as I left the bathroom and came face to face with a dark-haired petite nurse who was giving me a wide grin.

“Do I know you?” I asked, and I couldn’t help but grin back at her.

“Oh, I don’t think so. But I heard all about your story. It’s all over the hospital—sweet-talking Mr. Davis at the front desk and then taking on Mrs. Betty and several security guards,” she rambled, checking Jay’s chart and vitals.

“It was just one security guard.” I made my way over to Jay’s side.

She threw her hands up in a no-nonsense move. “It’s the most romantic story this hospital has had in such a long time. It’s just so sweet, you going to all these lengths.” She sighed.

“A real Romeo and Juliet,” I muttered.

She made a face and fussed over us for a couple more minutes before disappearing down the hallway.

“Looks like even at the end we are going down in infamy, Jay!” I paused. “That reminds me. I brought you some things.” I reached into my purse and pulled out several photos.

“Remember this one?” I asked him. It was a photo of our first time out to Oak Island. Oak Island was a small beach down on the far southern coast of North Carolina, easily a three-hour drive from Greensboro. The photo had been taken the weekend after Jay’s graduation. In the picture, we were sitting on the beach. Our beach towels were stretched out underneath us and a row of summer houses stretched out behind us. We had these crazy, stupid, wide grins stretched across our faces. We had spent the night in our car in sleeping bags and had got up superearly to watch the sunrise. Jay then talked me into a nice long run on the beach, telling me how romantic it would be. I don’t think we saw a soul that morning. It was heaven.

“Or this one?” I asked him. The next picture was from the first 5k road race we completed together. I had long been a runner and when we started dating, we found that we had that in common. Jay was a faster runner than I was, but whenever we ran together, he would slow down, making sure he never left me behind. He was a fierce competitor and loved racing, but I was too scared to enter a race. It took him a little over a year to convince me to enter one. We had decided to enter a short 5k race, a distance we had run numerous times together. He ran with me until the very end of the race. I kept waving him on and telling him to go ahead and finish strong. So at the end, with half a mile left to go, it didn’t surprise me that he took off at full speed to finish the race. By the time I arrived at the finish line, he was there, holding up a “Will you marry me?” sign with a single yellow rose. After I was able to catch my breath, I accepted.

“I think this is my favorite,” I said holding up another picture. It was from our wedding day, but it wasn’t one of the many formal portraits we had taken. It was a picture that Stella had snapped when we both thought no one was looking. It was a close-up, but we were just standing off to the side by ourselves, holding hands, talking with our heads close together. I couldn’t remember what we were talking about, but it was probably something very mundane. I loved the picture because it was just us in our little world and we were so happy. We had our whole life ahead of us in that moment and we were ready to tackle it together.

I had several other photos I showed Jay and when I was done, I sat next to him in silence for as long as time allowed us to, just holding his hand. I had been attracted to him from the first time I saw him. I never believed in love at first sight, but after meeting him, everything fit into place. I had come from a broken home and Jay had made me feel part of a family again. My mom had died from breast cancer when I was eight. She was always promising that she was going to be fine, but in the end she lost her four-year battle. It took me a very long time to understand her struggle. My dad was never the same after her death. He fell down a dark path of drugs and alcohol, eventually getting arrested for possession with intent to distribute to minors as well as endangering a minor. It was my seventeenth birthday, the night the police showed up at the house to arrest him.

Stella’s parents divorced when she was young, so it was just her and her mom, and they were struggling to make ends meet, but her mom agreed to take me in until I turned 18. That fall Stella, Lanie and I all enrolled at Wake Forest University. To pay for tuition, I used whatever money was left over from my mom that my dad hadn’t squandered away. Stella and Lanie both got huge scholarships based on their grades and SAT scores. Then, after we finished our freshman year, Stella, Lanie and I rented an apartment not far from campus. Stella and I continued to live together after graduation when Lanie moved to Raleigh. But I never felt that I belonged to a family until the day I met Jay. It wasn’t about the fact that his family was more functional than mine, because it wasn’t. While his mother was alive, Jay resisted his father, who was much older than his mother and had been grooming Jay to become a major player in the Massachusetts firm in which he was currently a partner. But eventually Jay went to law school and joined the firm right before his dad retired but not before causing irrefutable damage to their relationship.

Simply stated, when I was with Jay, I felt I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

“I’m afraid I’ll be lost again,” I whispered as I squeezed his hand.

“Knock, knock,” I heard someone say from behind me. There in the doorway stood Harry, Peter, Stella and Lanie.

“Hi,” I said meekly. “I thought you two weren’t coming back.”

“Well, we weren’t planning on it until we saw your note this morning and were convinced we were going to be bailing you out of jail,” Stella said, waving my note at me.

“Or at least reading about it on the front of the paper this morning,” Lanie added.

“It would have never made the morning paper but maybe the evening news,” Peter said as he winked in my direction.

“And Harry called and ripped into us about being the worst babysitters in the world,” Lanie added. I mouthed the word
sorry
to her and she just shrugged.

“I think it took guts. You must have really talked yourself out of a sticky situation from what Harry told me … I told you that you would have made a great lawyer,” Peter said very seriously and everyone started to laugh. In truth, Peter had tried to convince me to go to law school every time I saw him after Jay and I started dating. I refused, saying I knew enough lawyers to last me a lifetime.

“I’m glad I could catch everyone,” Dr. Matthews said as he entered the room. Immediately, the feeling in the room changed as if we were all holding our breath. “I heard it was an interesting night,” he added, raising an eyebrow in my direction.

“Sorry about that,” I said quietly, looking back at Jay.

“It’s time.” Dr. Matthews paused before saying, “We will need to prep Mr. Greenfield and get him ready for surgery in one hour.” No one moved. No one expected it to happen so fast. Dr. Matthews gave us a couple more instructions and left us to say our final good-byes. We decided that we would each say our good-byes privately and that I would go last.

“Jill, have you contacted a funeral home?” Peter asked me as I stood in the hallway alongside him, Harry and Stella. Lanie was the first to say good-bye.

Stella jumped in. “I called one yesterday.”

The home she mentioned was the same one that had arranged my mom’s service many years ago.

“Are you doing a funeral or cremation?” Peter asked. He was a very direct man who showed little emotion. I often thought that though Jay looked like his dad, his personality must have been much more like his mom’s, although I had never met her.

“I’m not sure. Stella did you hear back from the lawyer?” I asked.

“Yes. Paul Wellon sends his condolences and said he would fax me the documents this morning. He also said we will need to set up a meeting with him to settle Jay’s estate in the next several weeks.”

“What estate? We don’t have anything,” I said. She just shrugged.

“What are you unsure about?” Harry asked.

Just then, Lanie came out and tapped Stella on the shoulder, indicating it was her turn.

“Well …” I hesitated before I started in on the endless questions that had been racing through my mind. “If I bury Jay, where do I bury him? Back in Massachusetts? Here in North Carolina? But then I might not live in North Carolina forever, so then who would visit him? I can’t just dig him up and take him with me every time I relocate. But then if I cremate him, do I keep him on my mantel?” I stopped to take a breath. The idea of Jay’s ashes on the mantel of any house really bothered me. “If I scatter his ashes, where do I scatter them, and would he even be okay with that?” I looked around and no one had any answers for my questions. Stella came out wiping the tears from her eyes, and Harry turned to go in.

“I worry about Harry,” Peter said when Harry left. The thought of Peter worrying about anyone surprised me. “Jay and Harry were best of friends since they were so young. Jay was his entire support system.” I nodded in agreement. Harry came from a solid family back in Massachusetts but had created some waves when he married a pretty young girl soon after Jay had decided on going to law school. It had been a quick courtship and an even quicker marriage before it all fell apart. Since then Harry had distanced himself from his family and spent more and more time at the local dive bar.

“This might push him over the edge,” Peter added.

“Jill.” Stella leaned in and whispered, “We have an appointment at the funeral home this afternoon. They have some paperwork you need to complete as well as major decisions you need to make.”

I nodded. I was afraid that if I started speaking, the tears would begin and I wouldn’t be able to turn them off.

Harry emerged from Jay’s room a couple of minutes later. His eyes were red and he was sniffling as he waved at us, indicating he needed a minute. He walked down the other hallway to be alone. Peter took his cue and went in to see Jay.

“What do you think he has to say to him?” Stella wondered.

“You are so nosy,” Lanie said. “I would hope he says he loves him and was proud of him.”

“Boring! I wonder if he will spill all his secrets,” Stella whispered conspiratorially. Peter was the lawyer that many of Boston’s worst criminals sought out to keep them out of jail in the late ‘60s through the mid-‘80s when he retired from public service and went into the private sector. From what Jay had said, he never spoke of those cases or clients. That didn’t stop Stella from asking. Having studied several historic cases while in law school, she was convinced there was more to every story.

“Why are you even thinking of that?” Lanie asked.

“What? It could happen … What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall right now,” Stella said, defending herself.

“Tact, Stella. You need some serious tact,” Lanie said, shaking her head. Just then, Peter emerged from Jay’s room. He looked very solemn and stoic. The man was a rock. Nothing ever moved him.

“I never thought I would be the one to outlive them both,” he said as he came and stood by me, giving my shoulder a tight squeeze.

“Jill, it’s you,” Lanie said quietly. I nodded and headed into Jay’s room one last time.

I sat by Jay’s bed and held his hand. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. There was so much to say and nothing at all. I took a deep breath, trying to fight the tears that started to slide down my cheeks. Finally, I mustered the courage and I told Jay what our future together would have looked like.