The Boots My Mother Gave Me (21 page)

I was an adult, a grown woman, things change, and time changes all things. I wasn’t that wounded little girl anymore who needed Jeremiah for a soft place to fall. He wasn’t the only one who
got me
in some deep, connected way, beyond comprehension by any other, as I often romanticized. My feelings for him, clearly adolescent, remained some misplaced attachment to our youth. Every man I met, I compared to him, automatically ruling them unworthy of his likeness. I built him up in my mind, putting him on a pedestal, allowing myself to keep every other man at a safe distance, convinced they could never measure up.

Not this time. Xander measured up and beyond my expectations. He was real, tangible, not some figment of my imagination. My feelings for him were in no way impulsive, deeply maddening, all consuming, nor glamorized. They registered calm, reasonable, maybe even a little monotonous at times, but authentic nonetheless, not some fantasy. We had something real. And I had to keep my head about me, honoring that. I was not going to mess this up.

J
uly 4, 2004, I pulled into the parking lot of St. Mary’s Hospital. As I walked through the electric doors into the entryway, it was like déjà vu. The last time I had been in this place was graduation day, the day Jeremiah’s dad passed. I wondered why he ended up here. Couldn’t they send him to another location, anywhere but here? Following the signs to the orthopedics unit, I grew nervous to see him and his condition, apprehensive as to how I might react.

“Hi,” I greeted the man at the nurse’s station. “I’m here to see Jeremiah Johnson.”

He picked up Jeremiah’s chart, leafing through his admission data. “What’s your name?”

“Harley LeBeau.”

“You’re listed as his next of kin. Let me get his nurse for you.” How strange a concept? I guess maybe I was his next of kin, with his father gone.

“Hi. I’m Kimber, I’m taking care of Mr. Johnson today,” a pretty, petite young woman, approached, extending her hand.

Extending my own, I introduced myself, “I’m Harley.”

She looked at me as if a light bulb suddenly turned on. “Oh...
Harley.
I thought he was mumbling about a motorcycle.” She giggled, slightly embarrassed. “I admitted him this morning from intensive care, every now and then he would say
Harley.
He’s been so out of it, but now I see. Let me take you to his room.”

“How is he?” I asked.

“If I use too much medical jargon, just stop me,” she said, smiling, as we walked the long hallway.

“I think I can follow. I’m an ICU nurse.” I smiled back, tapping her empathetically on the forearm.

“Well, then, this will be a cakewalk for you.” She locked her elbow through mine, as we continued walking toward his room. “They extubated him this morning. He was not a big fan of the breathing tube. And strong...he’s like a bull when he tries to come out of that bed. He gets heavy doses of pain and sedation medications. He’s in four-point restraints, arms and legs. I know that can be tough to see, but it’s for his safety,” she assured. “He needs to be still and let everything heal. Any further inflammation or damage could cause nerve injury, at worst leading to paralysis. His face and body are quite bruised up, nothing that won’t heal. His heart is strong, and his lungs are good, he’s breathing on his own now. We just have to get him to relax. It’s going to take some time, his recovery.”

“Kimber, bed five needs to be prepped for surgery and Physical Therapy is here for bed two,” the Charge Nurse called to her from the nursing station.

“Be right there,” Kimber acknowledged.

“Go ahead. I’ll let myself in,” I said.

“That would be great. I’ll be back to check on you later.” She hurriedly made her way to bed five.

I took a deep breath before walking into his room, closing the door behind me to keep his environment quiet and serene, hoping he would remain restful. One look at him and my
almond
surrendered to my urge for tears. The right side of his face was bruised from his temple to his jaw line with a cut on his cheekbone, held together by sutures. I followed his bruised flesh down the right side of his neck to his collarbone where my vision became blocked by the hospital gown, covering his torso, accompanied by a sturdy wide restraint, holding his body safely down to the bed. I searched his arms and legs to their ends, relieved to find them still intact. His wrists and ankles, hugged by restraints, anchored his limbs.

He lay there, peacefully unaware of my presence or his own. His eyes closed, I heard a beeping sound from the pain pump as another dose of morphine found its way into his veins. I reached out my hand wanting to touch him, stopping myself midair, I pulled back wringing at my shirt against my heart, fearing if I touched him he might wake.

I sat in the chair to the side of his bed, watching him, silently anticipating. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes to hours. The sun started to set, another day coming to a close. As I watched the big yellow-orange ball of gas begin to disappear behind the trees, it reminded me of another sunset Jeremiah and I shared long ago.

All of ten years old, we made a plan to meet at the pond between his house and mine. He wanted to show me how to fish. After wading a quarter of a mile through grass up to my hip, I could finally see the top of his surfer-boy hair, as he sat on an old log, strategically placed in front of the deepest end of the pond, two buckets beside him, a fishing pole for him and one for me. I had no interest in fishing, but I’d try anything, for him.

“I thought maybe you weren’t coming,” he called across the pond upon seeing me.

“I had to help put in hay. We got two hundred and fifty-two bales off the side hill today,” I said, excited at the number, a true feat.

“You should’ve come and got me. I would’ve helped. Didn’t have anything going on anyway. Everyone’s out of town for summer vacation.”

I didn’t ask him to help that day because my dad was in a raging foul mood. He was just mean. “Where did they go?” I referred to our neighborhood friends, sidestepping his inquisition about helping.

“Terry went to his grandma’s in Vermont. Brad and Troy went to Disney World. Zac and his family went out west somewhere in their RV. And Danny and Ricky went to summer camp, up in the Poconos. That would be pretty cool, huh? They’re going for the whole summer.”

“That would be awesome,” I agreed, coming to rest beside him on the log. “Are you going anywhere?”

“Not this year. My mom’s supposed to come through town sometime and Dad wants to be sure we don’t miss her.”

“Do you? Miss her...your mom?” I asked, taking the fishing pole he handed me.

“I don’t know. I don’t know her that well, really. I mean...it would be nice to have her around, you know, like a real mom. I haven’t seen her since I was five.” He stuck his hand in the bait bucket, coming up with a long, black, slimy worm. “Here, take one of these and put it on your hook.” He demonstrated poking the worm onto his hook, smooshing its guts out the other side.

“Euw! Gross!” I exclaimed. He laughed. “Yuck! I’m not doing that.” Tomboy or not, that was disgusting and I wanted no part of it. “That poor worm!”

“Oh, come on, Harley.” He continued laughing. “It’s not that bad. Quit acting like a girl.” I rolled my eyes at him, somewhere between offended and amused. “Here, I’ll bait it for you,” he said.

“No. I want to bait my own hook.” I grabbed my pole, reached my hand into the bucket, pulling from it a plump, juicy nightcrawler. I squirmed as much as the worm, my hands clumsily guiding it onto my hook. “Oh, this is so gross.”

“Now be careful you don’t catch your finger...”

“Ouch!” I interrupted his thought, as I did exactly what he warned me not to, catching the tip of my finger on the point of the hook. “Euw, aw yuck!” My finger hurt a little, but I was too disgusted to care. The worm just kept squirming, even after I hooked the poor, defenseless thing. I couldn’t even look at it.

Jeremiah took my hand, inspecting my finger, accumulating blood at its tip. “Here,” he said, putting it to his lips. I looked at him oddly as he pulled my finger from his mouth free of blood. He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “That’s what my dad does.”

“Thanks...I guess.” He cast his line, demonstrating for me. After a few muddled attempts, I had success. “Now what do we do?”

Jeremiah took a seat on the log, patting the one next to him. “We wait, until we catch something.” No wonder I never cared to fish.
How boring,
I thought to myself, joining him. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t do to spend time with Jeremiah. We sat a few minutes, silent before he spoke, “Do you think she loves me, my mom?”

“I’m sure she does. You’re a great kid. What’s not to love?”

“It just doesn’t feel like she loves me. If she loves me, why did she leave?”

“I don’t know. Parents have funny ways of showing their love sometimes. Mom says my life is all black and white right now, as a kid. But she says when I get older, become a woman, that changes, and there’s a lot of gray area. I think adult love is more complicated.”

“I guess so. I mean, I love my football, and I would never leave it. I might leave it at the house, when I’m at school, or doing something else, like fishing. But if I went somewhere, far away, I’d take it with me. I wouldn’t leave it. Would you leave something you loved?” At that moment, the tip of my pole started bobbing. “Harley, I think you got something.” We stood alert.

“What do I do?”

“Start reeling it in,” he said, pointing to the crank. I did as instructed, while he cheered me on. I was so excited, until I saw that poor fish come out of the water on the end of my pole, flopping its tail and wriggling about. Jeremiah went to the end of my line, pulling it, fish and all back to me as I stood there on the bank. The hook had gone through its jaw, its eyes bugged out, it just looked petrified, completely agonized.

“Help it, Miah. Do something.”

“I’m going to help it, right off this hook and into that bucket. Hope you like fish, Harley-girl, that’s what we’re having for dinner,” he bantered about happily.

“No, no, no,” I whaled. “We can’t eat that thing. Look at it. It’s just pitiful. Put it back in the water. Please Miah, let it go.”

He disdainfully removed the hook, carefully from the fish’s jaw and walked to the pond, throwing it back in. “You eat fish from the grocery store. Where do you think that comes from,” he muttered, returning to the log. He sat down, picking up his pole, as he reeled in his line and set the rod off to the side.

“Sorry, I just never saw a fish...on a hook...like that. They’re usually on my plate, no eyes bulging out, no gills flaring, no tails flipping. I felt bad for the thing.” I took a seat beside him. “Bet you’ll never ask me to go fishing again. Don’t put your pole away. Just because I threw mine back doesn’t mean you have to.”

“I wouldn’t feel right about catching one now, in front of you. I don’t really feel like fishing anyway.” His mind preoccupied with thoughts of his mom.

“No,” I said.

“No, what?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t leave someone I loved. I’d carry them with me...in here,” I expanded, putting my hand over my heart. “I think that’s what your mom does, ya know? Like that E.E. Cummings poem, I think she carries you with her, in her heart, that way she’s never without you.” Jeremiah put his hand over mine, holding onto it as we sat, quiet and still, watching the sunset fall behind the trees.

My memory ended when the last warm ray of color disappeared from the sky, as I sat in the hospital at his bedside. I stretched my arms over my head, accompanied by a yawn, momentarily closing my eyes, when all of the sudden the bed started rattling. I jumped up and went to him, realizing he was fighting against his restraints.

“Miah,” I spoke soft, controlled, approaching the head of his bed. “Be still love. You’ve got to quit fighting.” I gently ran my fingers through his hair. He listened, relaxing his body. His skin instantly wet with sweat from exertion.

His eyes searched mine in disbelief. “Where am I?” he whispered, his voice raspy.

“You’re in the hospital. They sent you home, Georgia, PA baby.” I smiled, trying to ease the anxiety in his expression, as well as my own.