These Three Words (20 page)

He turned toward me and winced.

“Gray, this all can wait until later.” I didn’t want to stress him. “I’m here, I love you, and I’m sorry for everything. The rest is all beside the point.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s not. The rest of it matters. I heard you. Well, bits of things. Maybe some of it was a dream. But I think some of it was real. I heard Mom tell you . . .” His voice broke and he paused a moment.

“It’s all right,” I said. “You don’t need to now.”

After months of wanting nothing more than for him to open up and share with me, it was just enough that he was here. He was awake.

I’d blamed him, but I knew in my heart that I’d made him my whipping boy. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “We don’t need to say any more than that.”

He shook his head. “I heard Mom tell you about after the baby. Addie, I should have told you. I wanted him more than you’ll ever know. I should have said that. I should have cried with you. I didn’t realize . . .” He sighed. “I wanted to be strong for you.”

“I know that now, Gray. For a long time, I blamed everything on you. I think I needed someone to blame, and you’ve always been so close to me. It made you an easy target. But sitting here, I realized that we were both lost and hurting. And rather than reaching for each other, we both pulled away.”

I felt the need to be honest, to say the words. I’d realized something without even realizing I was realizing it. “When I tried to book that one last trip for us, I think I knew you’d say no. It gave me an excuse. I said you pulled away and wouldn’t talk to me. I stoked my anger at you. Don’t you see? All this wasn’t you pulling away or saying the wrong thing. It wasn’t the honeymoon we didn’t take. It was me. I did this. I was broken and you couldn’t put me back together. I blamed you for that. And being angry with you was so much easier than being angry with myself. This was my fault. And I’m sorry for that.”

He closed his eyes again. I couldn’t tell if he’d fallen asleep again or was simply finding this conversation too taxing. “We can talk about all this later, Gray. I love you and I’m here for as long as you want me to be. All that matters now is getting you well,” I whispered.

He shook his head. “I will always want you, Addie. But I need to say . . . I need to say all the things I should have said before. I tried to tell you, but everything I said came out wrong.”

Maybe it’s for the best
.

Those words had haunted me. They’d fueled my anger and made me feel justified blaming Gray. Blaming him for something that couldn’t have been his fault any more than it was mine.

I glanced at the sonogram. Timothy Hunter Grayson.

I knew that Gray hadn’t meant those other words. He’d said everything he needed to say when he’d named our son.

As if he read my thoughts, he said, “I said something about it being for the best. I know that hurt you. But what I meant . . . I couldn’t stand the thought of our son suffering. I know afterward the tests said there was nothing genetically wrong, but . . . I didn’t mean . . .”

“I know you didn’t,” I told him. “I was so angry and that anger needed a target. But I know you didn’t mean that.”

I remembered a promise I’d made him right after we started dating in college. We were sitting in the library when Candy, Gray’s prom date all those years ago, walked by. She stopped and chatted a few minutes, then left. And Gray said . . .

“She’s still pretty.”

“Oh, really?” I asked, half teasing, half miffed. I knew that Candy was pretty, but I didn’t want Gray to notice it, or even worse, comment on it.

“Yes,” he said.

I was always amazed by the cues he missed. I mean, he could notice Candy’s prettiness, but not my annoyance?

I knew that being annoyed was crazy and not the least bit rational. But I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

He looked at me and I could see it register that I didn’t necessarily like him talking about other girls being pretty. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re right, she’s always been pretty,” I said, trying to tamp down my annoyance.

No. Not annoyance. Jealousy. I was jealous of Candy. And I didn’t like feeling that way.

Gray shook his head. “Candy’s always been pretty, but she’s always known it.”

I really wanted this conversation to end, so I simply said, “Okay.”

“No, it’s not okay,” he insisted with a sigh. “I’m making a mess of this. Candy’s pretty and knows it. You’re pretty and don’t know it. That’s part of your
. . .
” He paused.

“Charm?” I supplied. I’m not sure about the pretty part, but I was charmed.

“Yeah,” he said. “Listen, Addie, I am
. . .
” He paused again, searching for the right word.

I couldn’t help fill it in this time, so I just waited.

“Socially awkward,” he finally said. “Remember Susie? She told me that I was socially awkward.” He glanced at me quickly, as if to check that I wasn’t going to get all green-eyed about that.

“She was wrong,” I said with a smile.

Jealousy wasn’t a game I normally played. I didn’t like the feeling and resolved to try to avoid it in the future.

“Listen,” he said. “In my head my compliments are just that—compliments. But somew
here between
my head and my mouth they can turn i
nto something
else entirely.”

“You do okay,” I assured him. “After all, you did say I was pretty.”

“You see, I goofed that up, too. Adeline Frasier, you are more than just pretty. To me you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“Now that was pretty much perfect,” I said and kissed him.

When the kiss ended he said, “Maybe when I mess up the next time, you should just ask me what I really meant.”

“I should ask what it sounded like in your head before it got to your mouth?” I teased.

He looked relieved and nodded. “Yes.”

“I forgot to ask you what you meant,” I said. “All those years ago in college, you told me that sometimes you said things all wrong, and I promised to ask what you really meant. I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“I thought I was being strong for you, but you didn’t need my strength, you just needed me to share the grief with you. You needed me to be present.” He closed his eyes and said, “I had so many plans for him, you know. I was going to be the father I never had. Like your dad. Like my mom, for that matter. My mom was the best mother, but she also managed to be the best father. I was going to show up at his games, and read to him. I thought that when he was old enough, we’d surprise him with a trip to Disney World. I mean, really surprise him. Not tell him until the morning, as we left for the airport. I’d researched it. And . . .”

He shook his head and opened his eyes.

I realized that he had tears in them.

Those tears were my undoing. I started to cry as well. I cried for Timothy Hunter. I cried because I’d lost Gray long before I’d almost lost him to his illness.

“I’d give up the business and all my plans for a chance to be all that for him. I will never get over losing him,” he said.

“And all the dreams that died with him,” I said, understanding.

He nodded. “Addie, I’ll be or do whatever you need if you’ll give me another chance. We can go back—”

I thought about Maude, meeting Bertie at the Piggly Wiggly in Waunakee, Wisconsin. “We can’t go back, but we can make a new start.”

Maude, James, Harriet, Siobhan, and Mark—I might never know some of their last names or what they did for a living, but they’d all made a profound impact on me.

“I talked to other people who were waiting for their loved ones while I was waiting for you. They shared a lot of their happy moments.

“Here I am, Gray, and here I’m going to stay—with you. I love you. We never forgot our love, but we forgot to be there for each other.” I shrugged. “I’m not sure that makes sense to you.”

It made sense to me. I squeezed his hand again. “The day I came to your office, I’d thought that I wanted to shake you and make you remember the way we used to be, but I had it all wrong. It wasn’t just you, it was me. I got stuck on that one horrible moment and forgot the hundreds of other moments. The better moments. The wonderful moments. Even the mundane moments. I forgot them all. All I could remember was losing the baby and then feeling as though I’d lost you as well.”

“And now?” he asked.

“While you were sleeping I fell in love with you again. Or maybe I just remembered that I never stopped loving you.” Like one of those digital picture frames, the moments tumbled over each other in my mind. “Right now, I can see us in a classroom. We had to have been very young because I was at a desk where the seat wasn’t attached. You were leaning over me, explaining something. I don’t remember what, but I do remember you saying,
Just take your time, you’ll get it. You’ll figure it out
.”

He’d trusted me to figure it out then. “Well, I figured it out now. I never stopped loving you, but while you were sleeping, I fell in love with you all over again.”

“I love you,” he said, then closed his eyes. And slowly his breathing changed. I realized he’d fallen asleep again.

If this were a movie, it might seem anticlimactic, but for me, it was fine. I loved him. He loved me. That was enough.

I sat back down, and when Alice stuck her head into the room, I held a finger to my lips to let her know he was sleeping.

She tiptoed in, checked on him, then nodded and tiptoed out.

I stood and looked out the window. The sky was a bright blue today with big, fluffy fall clouds. Sometime soon, we’d leave this hospital and go home.

I glanced back at the man I loved. He was still sleeping. A small smile played across his lips. I wondered what he was dreaming about.

For the next couple of hours, we had snippets of conversations. It was as if Gray had suddenly discovered all the words he’d never said.

Every time he woke up, he looked for me.

I saw his fear that I’d left and his relief each time he realized I hadn’t gone anywhere.

“After you moved into JoAnn’s,” he said, “I used to ride the elevator every morning and watch as the bay came into view. You were my first thought. And though I knew I couldn’t see you, I felt you. All day, I used to stare out my window looking at the bay, wishing I could see you. Then at night, as I left the office, I’d watch the bay disappear from view and I would miss you even more.”

He’d fallen asleep, and when he woke, he didn’t miss a beat as he continued, “Sometimes, I didn’t leave my office. I slept on the couch and spent the night staring at the lights on the edge of the bay, wondering if one of them was yours.”

I didn’t have a chance to respond before he dozed off again.

Smita came in this time.

“He keeps falling asleep. Is it the drugs?” I asked.

“He just had open-heart surgery and is taking some heavy-duty pain medication. He’ll still be a bit loopy for a while.” She looked at me. “It’s normal. He’s okay.”

Those were the words I wanted to hear.

As Smita left, Gray squeezed my hand. “Do you know one of the things I missed the most while you were gone?”

I shook my head.

“Your singing,” he said.

I managed a small smile. “Maybe I should call the doctor . . . you are obviously delusional.”

“No, I mean it,” he said. “You were always singing around the house. It seemed too quiet without that.”

I had my own little playlist of songs that I sang without even thinking about it. I realized that I hadn’t done much singing since I left Gray.

To be honest, I’m not sure that I’d done any.

And I realized at this moment I truly felt like singing again.

“Sometimes you’d catch me midsong and laugh,” I said. “I think I sang all the more because I loved to hear that sound. You are a very serious person by nature.” I smiled as I said the words.

Gray nodded his agreement, wearing a very serious expression, but then like a small ray of sunshine, I could see his smile lurking behind it. “There’s one song I remembered you singing about a man who didn’t have the words. I spent weeks listening to your iPod, trying to find it. And when I did, I think I listened to it—to the entire musical—a hundred times.”