The Lavender Hour Page 11

  I switched on the ignition.

  “God, this feels great,” he said. He didn't look so great. I wasn't sure how long he'd be able to last and so went directly down Main Street and toward the Coast Guard station and the cut, a break in the barrier beach on the Atlantic. It was a warm day, one of the rare windless ones, and I started to roll down my window when I noticed he was hunched forward, hugging himself. “Cold?” I asked.

  He nodded. I closed the window and cranked on the heater. I hadn't thought to bring a jacket for him, since the temperature had reached the midseventies. I pulled into the parking lot opposite the station but kept the engine on. The heater pushed hot air through the vent by our legs. There were about a dozen other cars there. In the SUV next to us, two girls ate sandwiches and drank takeout coffee. I looked across to South Beach, just past the breach where the tides had shoaled the sands, forming a connection from the barrier spit to the mainland, a corrugated arc of sand. Winter-weary walkers were spread out along the beach, strolling along the water's edge. Occasionally someone stooped and retrieved something from the sand.

  “What are they picking up?” I asked him.

  “Probably shells, maybe a few sand dollars or starfish.”

  “Really? I found a starfish one summer when I was about five. I still have it.”

  “Ah, the amazing starfish,” he said. “Another question for the poets and Nona's God. Why should the starfish hold the miraculous power to regenerate and not us?”

  Of course there was no answer to that. I wanted to take his hand but held back, afraid he'd interpret the gesture as pity. To tell the truth, I'd been off balance since the moment he'd admitted that he had missed me the day before. Again, the air between us had shifted, but I wasn't sure of the new ground. It was as if, over the past weeks, we had been moving and moving toward a certain destination, and then suddenly had arrived but didn't have a name for the place we found ourselves occupying, or even the right to speak of it. I think he felt it, too. He rolled down his window. Rocker sat up and put his paws on the back of Luke's seat and nuzzled his nose to the opening.

  “Will you be warm enough with that open?” I asked.

  “I need to smell the salt,” he said.

  We sat for a while, watching the beachcombers. The girls in the SUV finished their lunch and left. A fishing vessel made its way in through the channel, on its way back in to the fish pier.

  “God, but I miss this,”he said.

  “The ocean?”

  “All of it.”

  I focused on the boat cutting through whitecaps, watched it hook around a marker buoy.

  “I hate being like this,”he said.

  I reached over and took his hand then. When I allow myself to think back to my time with him, that afternoon is one of the memories I recall in every detail: the sun pouring through the windshield, heating my chest; the doggy smell of Rocker mixed with the brine of ocean air; Luke's hand in mine. The promise of possibilities taking root in my heart.

  After a while, he rolled up the window. I put the car in reverse, and we headed over to Harwich Port.

  “You live around here, don't you?” he said.

  “In the campground,” I said. “Wanna see?”

  “Sure.”

  I took the left fork off 28 and onto Lower County, swung through the narrow side roads that led to my family's cottage.

  “I haven't been down here in years,” he said. “It used to be mostly summer homes.”

  “It still is,” I said. Throughout the winter, Faye and I had been the only people on our street, although over the Easter weekend, families had started to appear and had begun the annual task of taking down storm shutters and opening up their homes. I pulled up in front of the cottage.

  “You have a view of the sound,” he said.

  “Yes.”A picture took shape in my mind: Luke and me in the cottage, where I would tend to him, heal him. I allowed myself to almost believe this pretty dream, a fantasy rooted not in the truth of a reptilian, cunning disease but in a spreading, irrational desire in me, desire built on love, which later in the fall I would hear labeled obsession. But that day I was taken with the dangerous belief that if you loved someone, you could save his life.

  AT THE Dairy Queen, we each got a vanilla swirl. Rocker, too. I was feeling happy, triumphant. I turned to say something to Luke, but his face, twisted in pain, cut short my words. And then he groaned.

  “What?” I said, meaning, What's wrong? What can I do? What do you need? Oh God.

  “Home,”he managed, more groan than word. I opened my door and tossed what was left of our cones, then sped back down 28. He moaned again—a sound akin to the noises Ashley had made during child labor—then doubled over, cramping. In the rear seat, Rocker began to whine, a back-of-the-throat, nervous whimper.

  “Luke? Are you okay?” My chest tightened. My mouth turned dry.

  WHEN WE returned to the house, Jim was there in the yard, and I nearly wept at the sight of him. He started toward the car, but before he could reach the door, Luke lurched out, took two steps, and then fell, retching and puking, spewing vanilla swirl soft serve all over the grass. “Steady,” Jim said.

  Luke retched again, and then a brown stain spread over the seat of his pants. Shit rolled down his legs, pooled in his shoes. Rocker jumped from the car and ran to Luke, pushing against his legs.

  “Get a leash on that dog and keep him away,” Jim yelled.

  I sat in the car, hands clenching the wheel.

  “Now,” Jim shouted. He was supporting Luke, half carrying him toward the house.

  I swallowed and swallowed, frozen, unable to move.

  “Jess,” Jim hollered, “get hold of the damn dog.”

  I wanted to move. Didn't he understand that? I would have if I could have.

  “Jess?” Jim yelled again. And then a pickup pulled up and a man got out, and amazingly that broke my paralysis. I crossed the lawn and grabbed hold of Rocker's collar.

  “Need a hand with that?” the man asked.

  “Christ,” Luke said. His face twisted into a spasm of pain. Or anger. “Don't let him see me,” I heard him say to Jim. He pushed the words out between clenched teeth.

  Jim jerked his head at me, indicating I was to intercept the man in the pickup, then he lifted Luke and took him into the house.

  “Need some help there?” the man asked again. He stood by the truck.

  “We've got it under control,” I said. Under control. My hands shook.

  “Jesus,” the stranger said. “Is it always like this?”

  My voice returned. “Not this bad.”

  He turned toward me. “I'm Rich.”

  “Jessie,” I said.

  “Doesn't look like a great time for me to be stopping by,” he said.

  “No.” Rocker pulled against the restraint. I got a good look at the man now and thought, This is Rich? He was built square and was darkly tanned, like all the men who worked on the sea. Too much sun, and probably liquor, too. Still, he possessed the kind of raw energy that some women—women like Paige—found attractive. And he knew it. I took a step back, put some distance between us.

  “I'd better go in,” I said, “see if I can help out.”

  “Should I come?”

  “I don't think so.”

  “Right,” he said, relieved, I thought, not to have to go into that house. “Tell him I'll call later.” He started to say something more, but I had already turned away, headed inside, not letting go of the Lab.

  IN THE kitchen, I listened to the sounds from the bathroom. The running of the shower. A toilet flushing. I waited while Jim got Luke bathed and changed and settled. Finally, he came out of Luke's room, closing the door behind him. He carried an armload of soiled clothes. I could smell the stench across the room. He dropped the pile by the basement door and turned toward me.

  “Just what the hell were you thinking?” He was furious, a Jim I had never seen.

  “He wanted to go out,” I managed to s
ay, thinking, Oh God, don't let Luke be too bad. “We're supposed to do what they want.”

  “You're supposed to have some sense, to use your head,” he said.

  “I'm sorry,” I said. “He just wanted to see the ocean.” I started to cry. “I'm sorry.”

  “Hey.” He came over and slipped his arm around my shoulder. I managed to take a breath, tried to get myself under control. The stench from Luke's clothes was overpowering, like a third presence in the room.

  “I'm going to go take care of this stuff,” Jim said. “I'll be right back.” He headed to the basement. I heard the rumble of the washing machine starting up. By the time he returned, I had retrenched.

  “Will he be all right?”

  Jim looked at me, his gaze steady. “He's not dying today, if that's what you're asking.”

  The stone sitting beneath my breast shifted, lifted. Jim crossed to the sink and washed his hands. There was a smudge of shit on his shirtsleeve, and he rinsed that, scrubbing it out.

  “Should you phone the doctor or something?” I asked. I couldn't erase the picture of Luke doubled over, caught in spasms of diarrhea and vomiting.

  “I'll give Ginny a call,” he said. “He's lost a lot of fluid. She should probably check to make sure he's not getting dehydrated.”

  “Should I get him some water?”

  “In a bit. Let him get quiet, things settled down. Is there any Coke or ginger ale in the house?”

  “Both.”

  “Try the ginger ale. Shake it until it's flat, and then give him a little at a time. When I say a little, I mean a teaspoonful.”

  “Okay,” I said, glad beyond measure for something to do.

  “I'd like to wait for Nona to get back, but I'm already late for my next appointment. Will you tell her she can call me anytime?”

  “Okay,” I said. I didn't mention that Nona was in Wellfleet for the night, afraid that he would phone her and she would insist on returning. Even then—after all that had passed—I wanted to stay with Luke. To have the night with him. Later I would see that, from the beginning, I wanted too much. Wanted too much in a fierce and violent way that could only lead to trouble.

  LUKE SLEPT for hours. I sat in the chair by his bed and watched. After a while, I retrieved my pad and sketched his face. Over the days, I had done dozens of drawings but not nearly enough. Sometimes I just did quick lines, the suggestion of him. Or his hands. His face angled away, shadows falling across his jaw.

  When I looked over, he was awake, watching me. I flipped the pad shut and set it aside.

  “Haven't you done plenty of those already?” he said, causing a flush to heat my cheeks. I wondered how much he had observed during those times I'd thought he slept.

  “Do you mind?” I said.

  He didn't answer. I reached over to the table and picked up the glass of ginger ale. “Jim said you should have some fluid.” I offered him a spoonful. He sipped, swallowed.

  “What time is it?”

  “A bit after seven.”

  “I hate to ask you,” he said, “but Rocker needs to be fed. And walked.”

  At the sound of his name, the Lab crossed to the bed. He followed me to the kitchen. I measured out his kibble, then took him outside, walked him around the perimeter of the lot. Back in the kitchen, I ate a few spoonfuls of macaroni and cheese, cold, straight from the fridge. When I returned to Luke's room, he was sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Do you need something?”

  “My medicine.” He nodded toward the kitchen. “The bottle's in a cabinet by the sink.”

  The one firm and certain rule that had been drummed into us during the training was that we were not to give medications. But surely there were exceptions. They couldn't expect us to stand by and see a patient in pain. “How many?” I asked.

  “One should do,”he said.

  I shook out the pill and carried it to him, watched him wash it down with a swallow of ginger ale. It seemed a harmless thing to do, the right thing. I turned on a lamp, just the one. When the phone rang, we both started. It was Ginny, calling in to check. I handed him the phone, listened to him tell her he was okay now, that he was getting liquids, that he had someone with him. “About a seven,” he said into the phone. I knew he was telling her where he was on the one to ten pain scale.

  “Is she coming over?” I asked after he hung up.

  “Tomorrow. She said just keep on with the ginger ale and call if I needed to.”

  He shifted his position.

  “When I was little and sick, my mother used to make ginger tea for me,” I said. “She would serve it in a special china cup. When I finished the tea, she'd give me a back rub.” Lily had done the same thing when I had been in the hospital, the day after my surgery. I could still recall the comfort of her touch.

  “Sounds nice,” he said.

  “The tea or the back rub?”

  “Both.”

  Without asking, I reached for the controls and lowered the head of the mechanical bed until he was prone. “Here,” I said, “turn over.”

  I half expected him to refuse, but without a word, he slipped off the sweatshirt he slept in. I was grateful he had turned away and could not see my face. I had to catch my lip between my teeth. There were patches of raw skin. Bedsores, in spite of Jim's care. Each rib, each knob of his spine, was raised in relief, bones so tight against his skin, it seemed a wonder they hadn't pushed through. I had seen photographs of skeletal bodies like his staring out from the pages of textbooks and newspapers. Brown-skinned children with flies crawling at the corners of their eyes. Gaunt-faced people clad in striped pajamas, so emaciated it was impossible to tell their gender.

  His skin was dry, as if filmed with powder, with a yeasty, ether-ish sharpness to it. I traced the ridges of his bones with my finger, smoothed my palms over his broad-shouldered back, comforting, memorizing. I tended to him in this way for nearly an hour. Even as wasted as he was, I could see how muscular he once had been. He was long past due for a haircut, and dark curls formed at the nape of his neck. I allowed myself to touch them, and they felt exactly as I had known they would, soft, not wiry like some.

  “I know,” he said. “I need a haircut. It's been driving me crazy.”

  In the gentle glow of the desk lamp, I memorized the terrain of his body, traced the L-shaped scar on his right shoulder blade— nearly two inches long—and wondered what its history was. When I finished, he turned over and pulled up the blanket. In the moment before he could conceal it, I saw his penis, erect, pressing against the leg of his pajama bottoms. The air spread around me, and I lost my sense of direction. I felt the knife edge of desire, a longing so intense, I thought that it surely held the power to stop my heart, and then, just as swiftly, a sorrow marrow-deep.

  “Thanks,”he said, his voice guarded. “For the back rub. That was nice.” He reached for the bed controls and returned to a sitting position. I unsheathed a fresh straw and set it in the ginger ale, watched as he took a sip. When I was certain my voice would hold steady, I asked if he wanted the television on or for me to read to him, but he said no to both. We sat and watched the patterns that moonlight drew on the walls, sat for so long the moon inched across the sky and out of our line of vision. At some point, he reached for my hand. Then he surprised me by reaching up and stroking my hair. He asked if he could smell it, and that simple and unexpected request nearly undid me. I bent to him, let him press his face into my scalp, felt desire stir again.

  “You have beautiful hair,”he said, his voice a whisper.

  The air shifted again, leaving me disoriented, confused. “I know a girl whose hair saved her life,” I heard myself say, my head still bent to him.

  “Rapunzel?”

  “No, a real woman, someone I knew in college.”Why had this story surfaced now? Why was I telling it to him?

  “And…”

  “Well, she was hiking in California with a friend. They were well into the forest when a breeze came up and lifted her hair,
blew it across her face. She said that her hair smelled of smoke.” I told Luke how the woman had leaned toward her friend, bending her head so she could smell her scalp, and the other woman agreed that her hair did in fact smell of smoke. They both turned into the wind, but neither of them could detect anything in the air, only in the one's hair. The other woman wanted to keep hiking, but her friend insisted they go back, she couldn't get away from the smell of her hair, as if it had been singed. That evening, a fire broke out deep in the woods. “And so she was saved by her hair,” I said.

  “True story?”

  “True.”

  “Your hair,” he said, “smells of sweat.”

  “Jesus,” I said, pulling away, embarrassed. “I'm so glad I let you take a whiff.”

  “No,” he said. “I like it. It reminds me of the sea.”

  I was absurdly pleased.

  “Jesus,” he said then. Beneath the outline of the sheet, he again had an erection. He shifted his weight. I pretended not to notice.

  He asked for more ginger ale; I got a glass for myself, too. I set both tumblers on the table by his bed, then turned off the lamp, asked him if there was anything else he needed.

  “You don't have to stay in here,” he said. “There are beds upstairs. Or the couch.”

  In answer, I slipped off my shoes and, suddenly bold, lay down beside him. “Okay?” I asked, afraid he could hear the silent commotion of my heart.

  He edged over to give me more room. We lay there, and within minutes, he slipped into a drugged sleep. The room was hot, the bed narrow, and I couldn't sleep. I thought about the scar on his shoulder blade, wondered again about its origin. I listened to him breathe.

  At least I'll have this night, I thought. After.

  Sometime near dawn, I fell into a gray dreamless place. I woke to the creaking of the bed. Luke was sitting up. Rocker scrambled up and stretched, performing a perfect yoga pose. The morning sun flooded the room, robbing it of last night's intimacy, as if it had never been.

  It was morning, and he was still alive.