Disguised Blessing Page 7

  He shook his head. “We’re local.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “To help you and your mother—if I can.”

  “Are you asking permission or questioning your ability?” The words came out slurred and sloppy, the way comedians sounded imitating drunks. She tried moving her tongue around to ease the dryness but it didn’t help. It never did.

  His lips formed a slow smile. “Pretty feisty today, I see. Does that mean you’re feeling better?”

  She remembered him now. He’d been in to see her several times but had never stayed very long. “Where’s my mother?”

  “She went to the cafeteria with your uncle to get a cup of coffee.”

  Lynda brought her foot out from under the sheet and gave the tray table, and her lunch, a shove.

  “Not hungry?”

  “Not for that stuff.”

  “Then ask for something else. They’ll bring you anything you want.”

  “Oh, yeah? Then why the milkshake when I told them I wanted a salad?”

  Rick pulled up a chair and sat next to her, settling back and propping his feet on the bedframe. “You drink the milkshake and I’ll see that you get your salad.”

  “I don’t want the milkshake.”

  “Look—there are only a couple of battles you have any chance of winning around here. The number of calories you have to eat every day isn’t one of them, so you might as well yield that one and pick something else.”

  “I can’t eat all the stuff they give me.”

  “Why?”

  She considered giving him the same answers she’d been giving her mother but knew he wouldn’t believe her. “I’ll get fat.”

  “If you weren’t burned, and you ate this way all the time, you’re right. You would get fat. But now your body has different needs. It’s using the extra calories for healing and if you don’t replace them, you’re going to end up in big trouble.”

  “How?”

  “You know that stuff oozing out of your skin—the yellow fluid that’s on your dressing every time they change it?”

  She looked at him, hating that this stranger knew so much about her when she knew nothing about him.

  “It’s the same stuff that comes out when you scrape your knee, pure protein. Only with you, it’s coming out all over your back and arms. If you don’t replace it with the food you eat, the organs that need protein to function are going to shut down.” He leaned in closer and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You don’t even want to know what they’ll have to do to you if that happens.”

  “I don’t care.” She didn’t believe him. They were treating her like a little kid. All of them. Even her mother. No one listened to anything she said. No matter what it was, they always won. Whatever they told her to do she had to do. They poked and prodded and measured everything that went in and came out. They even told her when to sleep and when to wake up. Just this once she wanted the right to say no.

  “Yes, you do,” he said with scary confidence.

  Instead of taking it further, she went on the attack. “Who told you that you could be here?”

  “I’m a fixture in this place. I come and go as I please.”

  “Not if I tell the nurses I don’t want you here.” She was bluffing. It didn’t matter what she wanted; no one paid attention, especially not the nurses. No one cared what she wanted.

  Rick moved his chair closer and leaned an elbow on the bed. “I know you feel as if you’ve lost control over everything that matters to you and that there’s always someone telling you what you can and can’t do, but the food thing is something they’ll push to the limit. If you don’t eat on your own, they’re going to shove that tube back down your nose and pour it into your stomach.”

  He sounded so damn sure of himself. “Why should I believe you? You’re just a fireman.” He’d finally succeeded in scaring her. She didn’t want him to see how much.

  She went on before he could answer. “I’ll be fine. Everyone says so.” But always a little too cheerfully, especially Tom. When he said it, she had the feeling he needed convincing as much as she did.

  “And they’re right. But it’s a combined effort. It’s time you started doing your share.” He reached for the milkshake and handed it to her.

  She hesitated. “Is that why you’re here—to get me to eat this stuff?”

  “I heard you were giving the nurses a hard time,” he admitted. “And I figured you could use some straight talk about what’s happening around here. This is the way it is, pure and simple. You can keep on being a little shit with everyone who’s trying to help you—which you have to know by now is making what you’re going through twice as hard on everyone—or you can cooperate and get the rules bent your way once in a while.”

  “Some choice.”

  “That’s the way I see it, too.”

  She took the glass and stirred the thick chocolate-flavored liquid with the straw. She preferred strawberry, but had refused to answer when they’d asked.

  Tentatively, she took a sip. Even though giving in was hard, the same way apologizing when you knew you hadn’t done anything wrong was hard, she didn’t want them putting that tube back in her nose. Just the thought of how it made her feel made her want to scream or throw something or hit someone. Most of all she wanted this nightmare to end. She wanted to wake up and have her life back.

  Damn, she was crying again. How stupid. And in front of him, no less. He probably thought he was the reason. She didn’t want him thinking he had that much power over her, but she didn’t know how to change his mind without telling him more than she wanted him to know.

  Rick handed her another tissue. “Brian tells me you’re a cheerleader.”

  “I was.”

  “He has the impression you still are.”

  “Like this? Not likely.” Not wanting to give him the opportunity to tell her she should take another drink, she did so before he had the chance.

  “So you’ve quit but haven’t gotten around to telling anyone yet?”

  “What business is it of yours?”

  “None.”

  His answer caught her by surprise. “I had my mom do it for me.”

  “I see.”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t see anything. You come in here and act like you know me and know what I’m going through but you don’t.” Finally, she had a target for her anger, someone she didn’t care about, someone she wouldn’t have to apologize to later. “You’re just like everyone else who comes in here—telling me what to do and what to think, how I should feel and when I should feel it. You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be me.”

  “You’re right. I don’t know you. But I do understand what you’re going through.”

  “Yeah. Sure you do.”

  Instead of answering her with words, Rick rolled up his sleeve and showed her his arm. “Does this give me a little credibility?”

  Both fascinated and horrified, she stared at the patchwork of glossy skin and ribbed scars that ran from the inside of his wrist to his elbow. Was this the way her back would look?

  Somewhere in her mind she’d always been aware that she was pretty. People told her so all the time. But until this happened she’d never really thought about it. It was just something she knew, like her lungs knew to pull in air after pushing it out. Now everything was different. She wasn’t pretty anymore. She never would be again.

  She saw that Rick was waiting for her to say something. “How did it happen?”

  “A firefighter fell through a roof and I reached in to pull him out.”

  “Did you? Pull him out, I mean.”

  “Eventually.”

  “Did he make it?”

  “No.”

  The question had been automatic. The answer shook her. Sometimes her back hurt so bad she told herself dying would be better. She knew now she was wrong. She didn’t want people talking about her in past tense. She wanted to see her friends again.

  And h
er mother…how would she feel? Her father wouldn’t even notice she was gone. But her Uncle Gene and Grandma Phyllis would miss her. Tom wouldn’t care. That should have bothered her, but it didn’t.

  “I wondered why you were wearing long sleeves in the middle of summer,” she said.

  Rick smiled and rolled back his other sleeve until it matched the first. There were burn scars there, too. “I’m wearing this shirt because it was the only clean one in the closet. Laundry isn’t high on my list of priorities.”

  “What about your wife?”

  “Don’t have one. And when I did, I didn’t take care of my clothes any better than I do now.”

  No wonder he wasn’t married anymore. “Do people stare at you when they see your arms?”

  “Sometimes—the way I stare at kids with spiked orange hair. It’s human nature, Lynda. Curiosity is part of our makeup.”

  “I don’t want people to look at me.”

  “Yes, you do. You just want it to be for the right reasons. And it will be again.”

  “Tom said if I dressed right, no one would see the scars. He’s going to buy me a whole new wardrobe when I get out of here. He said I could have his credit card and that he didn’t want me to pay attention to the price of anything.”

  “That’s very generous of him,” Rick said carefully.

  “It’s no big deal really. He has lots of money.”

  “I haven’t met your father yet. Does he live in Sacramento?”

  “Carmichael. But he travels a lot for his business, so he’s gone more than he’s home.” She didn’t want him thinking her father didn’t care. Lynda finished the milkshake and put the empty glass on the tray.

  Rick surveyed the remaining food. “If you eat half the hamburger, I’ll talk them into leaving you alone until dinner.”

  She made a face. “What if I eat the cookies instead?”

  “All of them?”

  She hesitated. “I better taste one first.”

  “They’re not bad. I ate one while I was waiting for you to wake up.”

  “Isn’t that against the rules? How are they going to know how much I eat?”

  “I’m going to tell them.”

  “Snitch.” She took a bite. As chocolate chip cookies went, it wasn’t bad. “Can I really have anything I want? I don’t have to eat this stuff as long as I eat something?”

  “Within reason.”

  “What about crab cakes—from California Cafe?”

  “That could probably be arranged.”

  She started to sit up and was savagely reminded why she was there. With a startled cry, she lowered herself back to the mattress.

  “Do you want me to get the nurse?”

  The pain stole her ability to speak. She nodded.

  He motioned through the window. “She’s coming,” he said.

  “My mom—would you find her for me? Please?”

  As soon as the nurse came in the room, Rick left to find Catherine. With each contact he became more confident that he could work with Lynda and her mother. He had reservations about Tom, but they ran along lines that had nothing to do with Lynda’s care. Tom could be a problem down the line. But then Rick would be surprised if Tom was around too much longer, so he wasn’t going to spend a lot of time worrying about it.

  9

  TOM REACHED ACROSS THE TABLE AND ADJUSTED Catherine’s collar. “That’s been bothering me since I got here. You must have been in a hurry when you left home this morning. You know what you need? A mirror by the back door so you can check how you look before you leave the house.”

  “You’re right. I was in a hurry.” She’d slept through the alarm. If not for the garbage truck grinding its way through the neighborhood on its weekly pickup, she might still be in bed. “I wanted to see Lynda before they changed her dressings.”

  “We have an appointment with Roger Chapman this afternoon. He’s squeezing us in as a personal favor to me and I don’t want to be late.”

  “Who’s Roger Chapman?”

  He made a frustrated sound and shook his head. “Catherine, you have to start paying more attention. I told you about him a couple of days ago. He’s the best litigator in the city. We’re damned lucky that he’s agreed to take Lynda’s case.”

  Finally, everything clicked. “I told you I didn’t want to sue the Winslows, Tom. I don’t understand why you thought I’d changed my mind.”

  “I figured if I gave you a couple of days, you’d come to your senses.”

  “It was an accident, Tom.” Somehow she’d failed to get across to him how she felt. “How could I possibly sue anyone for an accident?”

  “Grow up, Catherine. It happens all the time. It’s the way the world operates. Why do you think there are so many insurance companies?”

  “Well, it’s not the way I operate.” She picked up her cup and took a sip of the now-cold coffee. Her stomach spasmed in protest. “I need something to eat.”

  Tom stood. “I’ll get it for you. What do you want?”

  She tried to remember what she’d last eaten that had gone down without forcing. “Toast—whole wheat.”

  “Dry?”

  “Jelly. Grape if they have it. And some milk.” He started to walk away. “Wait. Get me a doughnut. A maple bar. One with lots of frosting.”

  He reacted as if she’d asked for hemlock. “Are you sure?”

  “One doughnut isn’t going to hurt me, Tom.” She should have known better than to ask. Tom equated sweets with drugs—equally destructive addictions.

  “At your age—at our age,” he quickly corrected, “every calorie counts.”

  “Never mind.” He was a sentence away from becoming her broken shoelace on a frantic morning. “The toast is fine.”

  He smiled, his good deed accomplished. “I’ll be right back.”

  As usual this time of day, the atrium was filled with the sounds of children at play: laughter, shouts of triumph at a well-played game, groans at losing. Normal sounds. Deceiving sounds.

  Here what was normal became an oddity a step away from the entrance. The laughing little girl riding her father’s shoulders seemed like little girls everywhere until you noticed she had no feet. With unimaginable determination, a boy in a wheelchair had learned to operate the controls without fingers. A tottering two-year-old wore flesh-colored pressure garments as if they were a playsuit.

  Two weeks ago, Catherine could not have imagined herself a part of this world. She certainly couldn’t have conceived how easily she would adjust. She didn’t know whether to give herself credit for adaptability or to wonder about her lack of sensibility.

  She’d changed so readily, at times she had trouble understanding how hard it was for Tom. When he expressed pity instead of joy at one of Lynda’s small triumphs, Catherine was torn between understanding, making excuses for him, and feeling angry.

  “Here you go.” Tom took the toast and milk off the tray. “I’m sorry about the doughnut thing, Catherine. I didn’t express myself very well and I’m afraid I may have hurt your feelings.” He sat down next to her and possessively put his hand on her thigh. “It’s just that every time I see your mother, it reminds me that you and Lynda have her genes. I know you don’t want to end up looking like her and I feel it’s up to me to help you any way I can.”

  Her mother was sixty-two years old, swam every day, led treks in the mountains for the Nature Conservancy, helped rescue sick and stranded marine mammals every spring, and wore a size eighteen. “Did it ever occur to you that you might be a little hung up on this weight thing?”

  “It’s been proven time and time again that the thinner you are, the longer you live. I want us to have a long, long life together.”

  “So how you feel has nothing to do with fashion?” She was purposely picking a fight with him and had no idea why. Only that morning she’d been thinking how much she missed him, their intimate conversations, their shared laughter, the quiet moments, the touching, the tenderness. She needed the man who cleared the
clouds with a smile, and longed for the one who could make her heart soar with a word.

  “Of course it does. I’m a man. Any man who tells you he doesn’t care about a woman’s weight is lying.”

  “What if I did turn out to be like my mother? Would you leave me?” Why was she doing this?

  “You’re after something, Catherine. Why don’t you just come out with it?”

  “What if I were the one who was burned, not Lynda?” The question surprised her as much as it did him.

  “You want an honest answer?” he asked after taking time to think.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know.”

  She couldn’t imagine a knife hurting more than his words. “I see,” she said softly.

  “No, you don’t. You just think you do. There’s no way I could predict how I would feel about something like that and it wouldn’t be honest to pretend it wouldn’t matter. All you should care about is whether I would stick around long enough to make a real effort to get past my feelings.”

  She started to say something when she looked up and saw Rick coming toward them. “We need to talk about this some more,” she said. “I don’t want Lynda knowing how you feel.”

  “It’s not just me, Catherine. I’m not the one out of step here, you are. You’re not helping Lynda by protecting her.” He saw Rick and groaned. “Jesus, doesn’t that guy ever work?”

  Rick had spotted Catherine and Tom as soon as he stepped off the elevator, but they were so intent on their conversation he’d hesitated interrupting them. Tom appeared defensive, his body language closed and guarded. Catherine looked the way she had since Rick first met her, exhausted, hanging on with her fingertips to her world gone mad.

  When she looked up and saw him she sent a smile that touched a protective chord in Rick.

  “I didn’t know you were here.” She moved to make room for him at the table. “Have you seen Lynda?”

  “I just came from her room.” For an instant, he considered waiting to tell Catherine that Lynda needed her. But it wasn’t a few minutes free of crisis she needed, it was days. “She asked me to find you.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “She will be as soon as she gets her shot. And she’s eating.” He wanted her to have something positive to think about on the way to Lynda’s room.