Knowing Is Not Enough (27 page)

“You know what?” I paused. “I don’t know what I am. We have to talk about that eventually.”

“I know. We do, but for right now, be there for Jake.”

“Okay, I’ll call later.”

“All right, babe, talk to you soon.”

Easton hung up right when I arrived at the coffee shop. While I waited for our drinks, I called Linda. She picked up on the first ring. I don’t think that’s ever happened before.

“Hey, everything okay?”

“No, it’s not. I’m at the hospital with Jake.”

“Is it his mother? What happened?”

“She’s not doing good. The doctor said she has an infection, which is an issue—because of the Cancer . . . it’s complicating everything.”

“Oh, wow, I didn’t know that. I haven’t talked to Jake since he started talking back with you.”

“Well, we both could use you now.”

“Where is Jake at?”

“He’s in the waiting room.”

“Where are you?”

“Getting us coffee.”

The staff person at the counter called out our drink order. I picked them up, and put them in a drink carrier while I continued to talk to Linda. “Hey, I’m going to have to get off the phone. I have it on my shoulder, and it’s
hard for me to carry the coffee and talk to you too.”

“Okay, go ahead. Do you want me to come up there?”

I felt relieved. “Yeah, if you don’t mind, that would be wonderful.”

“Okay,” she said. “Let me get myself together and tell Mitch. Which hospital?”

“St. Mary’s. The emergency room.”

I could almost see her checking her watch. “Okay, I’ll be there in half an hour.”

“Wait, do you know if Tobey is here?”

“No, but I can call her on the way.”

“Would you? Thanks, Linda. See you in a few—be safe.”

I walked back to the waiting area where I found Jake still sitting in the same spot I’d left him in. I handed him his coffee, but he didn’t drink. He set it on the table, and went back to holding his head in his hands.

Jake looked like a broken man. In that moment, I would have done anything for him. The doctors hadn’t come back out. So we continued to wait along with all the other families hoping to hear something—anything to bring hope to the hopeless. After ten minutes passed, Jake finally looked up at me. “Did you have far to go to get the coffee?”

“No, it was okay,” I said. “I called Linda to let her know what was going on.”

“Is Linda coming up?”

I nodded. “Yeah, she said she would be here soon.”

“Good.” He paused. “You talk to anybody else?”

I waited for a second before saying, “Just Easton.”

He frowned. “Why did you call him?”

“I didn’t, he called me. He wanted find out if we knew anything.”

He sighed. “Alex, you shouldn’t be seeing Easton.”

“Why not, Jake?”

He wasn’t looking at me. He picked up his coffee and looked into it while he spoke. “Well, for starters, he’s married, and his wife Grace is a nice lady.”

I really didn’t need this. “Grace and Easton were separated long before I came along, Jake.”

“Yeah, but you may be the reason they’re not getting back together.”

“That’s crazy. I’m not the reason.”

He took a sip of coffee. “Then why aren’t they back together?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He doesn’t discuss that kind of stuff with me.”

“I know you think our situation is different, but this is worse, Alex. We didn’t have kids, and you didn’t give therapy a chance, but Grace is.”

I stopped drinking. “What do you mean, Grace is?”

“Grace and Easton. They’re in therapy—they’ve been doing it for months now,” Jake said.

I suddenly felt cold. “How do you know that?”

“I still see her at the gym—Alex, I think you’re the reason it’s not working. He has feelings for you.”

I stopped talking then. I didn’t want Jake to know that Easton’s marital therapy was news to me.

“What happens if they work things out?” he asked. “Where does that leave you?”

I shifted in my chair. This conversation made me uncomfortable. “Isn’t that the purpose of therapy? To work it out.”

“She doesn’t know Easton is seeing someone.”

I shook my head, “Jake, you don’t know that.”

He turned toward me, “Yes, I do know that. Alex, she has no clue—sound familiar?”

I turned back toward Jake. “I’m not the reason. Please don’t insinuate that. It makes me uncomfortable.”

He wasn’t into playing games. He looked me squarely in the eye. “You may not be comfortable with it, but it’s the truth. I wasn’t comfortable with everything you said about me, but I know it was the truth.”

“I shouldn’t have said that stuff about you.”

“What about the stuff you said about Taylor? You called her every name in the book, and now you’re doing the same thing to someone else.”

I had a sudden horrible image of myself. I took a deep breath. “It
is
the same, isn’t it?”

“It’s not exactly the same,” he admitted. “In some ways it’s better and in others it’s worse.”

I’d managed to come full circle and make it right back to where I’d begun in my horrid romantic story. A triangular romance where someone is married, but this time, I played the role of the other woman, the person I loathed the most.

“I know this is an odd time for us to be having this conversation, but how did it really go with you and Taylor?”

Jake stood up and reached out for my hand. “Let’s go somewhere else to talk.”

I followed him outside the waiting room to a bench down the corridor. We sat down with our backs against the wall. Jake said, “We were both to blame, but nobody
was chasing anybody. Alex, we weren’t happy, and hadn’t been for a long time. Does that excuse what I did? No, it doesn’t, but it doesn’t give you the right to blame Taylor, either. Should Grace blame you?”

“I loved you more than life itself. I knew this girl, invited her in my home, and talked to her. I haven’t done that—”

Jake started to interject something. I held up my hand.

“Let me finish—I know now I’m not blameless, but there was no malicious intent in dating Easton. They
are
separated. I don’t know what agreements or understandings they have, but—” I rubbed my shoulders while adjusting my neck. “What do you want me say? I don’t have this all figured out.”

“Look at it from Taylor’s point of view. She felt like she made a mistake and got in too deep—but, unlike you, she ended it way before you and I even got divorced.”

I looked up sharply. “What do you mean, she ended it?”

“Taylor and I stopped seeing each other romantically almost as soon as we started. We weren’t in a relationship, Alex, we made a mistake.”

“But I thought you were seeing her. Even your mother said something about you seeing her.”

“Yes, I see her. We work together. I can’t help seeing her.”

Linda and the doctor appeared at the end of the hall. I stood up and waved my sister over. The doctor followed. Jake rose and reached out to hug Linda.

The doctor asked us to walk with him to a more private area to discuss Mom’s diagnosis and course of treatment. We all walked down the hall to a private
meeting room. It looked like the room in which doctors inform family that their loved one passed away.

Linda, forever the mother, grabbed my hand as we entered the small room. My eyes met hers and she mouthed
what’s wrong
? Even she knew it was more than Jake’s mother. I whispered back, “I’m fine, we’ll talk later.”

There wasn’t much news, not really. Ms. Thomas would remain in the hospital—she was gravely ill, and the next twenty-four hours should tell the story. Linda and I stayed with Jake until Mom got set up in her room. She was pretty much out of it, her eyes were closed the entire time she was being positioned in the room.

After the nurse left, Jake decided to stay the night in the lounge chair by her bed. “Let me get you a pillow and blankets from the nurse’s station.”

“Thank you,” he said.

When I returned, Jake and Linda were deep in conversation. They tailed it off when I entered. “I’ll be back in the morning.” I handed him the pillow and blankets.

“What time do you want me to come back?” Linda asked.

“Maybe about one o’clock, Jake what do you think?”

Jake said, “One is good.”

I pulled a brush out of my purse and sat it down on the nightstand. “You’ll need this in the morning.” I moved his hair aside with my hand and kissed his forehead. “See you in the morning—call if you need anything. Here’s a rubber band for your hair.”

It was midnight by the time we walked out to our cars. “Will you call Tobey and Sanford and let them know about
Jake’s mom?”

“I called Tobey on the way here. Her shift is around two o’clock tomorrow, so she’ll already be here in pediatrics.”

“Okay, I’ll still be here by then.”

Linda hugged me, “take care, kiddo. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”

“Thanks for coming out. I know it means a lot to Jake,” I said.

“Feels like old times, don’t it?”

“If this is what heartbreak feels like—then yeah, just like old times.”

Over the next five days Jake, Linda and I took turns at the hospital in eight-hour shifts. Tobey checked in throughout the time she was working to help out. Ms. Thomas, still unresponsive to the treatment, came in and out of consciousness with the medication in her system. We talked to her when we could, but mostly we received smiles.

Early Friday morning, I sat at her bedside reading a book, while Jake took a quick shower. “Alex is that you?” she asked.

I put my book on the floor. “Yes, Mom, it’s me. How are you feeling?”

She whispered, “tired, baby—” She turned her head toward the door. “Where is Jake?”

I reached for her hand and held it in mine. “He’s in the shower—let me get him for you.”

I hurried to the bathroom door and knocked. “Jake, Mom is awake.” The water stopped. He yelled back, “Let me grab a towel.”

I walked over and closed the main door to her room. The sight of Jake clothed was enough to put any women into cardiac arrest. I wasn’t confident I would be strong enough to resist the sight of him naked either. His clothes were in a chair next to the bathroom door. I grabbed them all up in my hands, and then knocked on the door. “Here are your clothes.” Jake opened the door with the towel wrapped around his perfectly chiseled body and took them from my hand. I pulled the door closed and leaned against it to catch my breath.
Oh boy . . . oh boy . . . oh boy. I actually think I stopped breathing for a second there
.

I walked back over to Mom, picked my book up from the floor and sat down. Just as quickly as her eyes opened they were closed again. I assumed she drifted back off to sleep. The bathroom door opened, filling the room with steam from Jake’s shower. He walked over to the bed where he found her fast asleep again. “When did she fall back to sleep?” he asked.

“Right after I gave you the clothes.”

He sat down on the other side of her. “Did the doctor come in?”

“No, nobody since you went into the bathroom. He should be coming in soon. Do you want me to go to the nurse’s station and check?”

“Do you mind?” he asked.

I stood up. “No, I’ll go.” The warmth from the shower still lingered at the door. It felt good on my skin perhaps a shower could do me some good too. Walking through the halls I stretched my back and shoulders to relieve the stiffness from sitting in the chair for hours on end.

To my surprise Easton was walking down the hall
toward me.

As he grew nearer his smiled widened . . . and my bewilderment deepened. I didn’t understand. He opened his arms and I stepped into his embrace. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Hello to you, too.”

“I’m sorry—it’s just that—this is not really a good time. Jake is in there with his mother. I only stepped out to get the doctor.”

“I haven’t seen or talked to you. I thought I would take a chance and come here.”

I motioned for him to walk with me. “That’s really sweet of you, but Jake is already not happy about us seeing each other. Right now—I don’t want to be another source of frustration for him.”

As we walked, I checked behind me to make sure Jake didn’t step into the hallway to see what was taking so long. Easton said, “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

“Look, I really can’t go into too much detail right now, but Jake told me you and your wife is seeing a marriage counselor.”

“Wow—he did. I would have liked to tell you that myself.”

I checked back down the hall then turned to Easton. “Here’s the thing—you had plenty of time to tell me what you were doing, but I blame myself. I should have asked.”

We reached the nurse’s station, and I made a final check behind me to see Jake standing in the hallway watching from a distance. Easton rubbed my head. “Maybe this isn’t a good time. I want to explain all this to you.”

I glanced back to see Jake moving toward the nurse’s station. “I think you better go. I promise I’ll call later tonight when I get a chance.” I turned around, nearly bumping into Jake. “I thought I would come see what’s keeping you.”

Easton answered back, “I was just about to leave.”

He bent down, ignoring Jake’s glare, and kissed me on the forehead. “I’ll call later,” I said gently, deliberately pushing him toward the elevator.