I wanted her to love our new town, this new home. So, we’d done the picnic and spent the day on the beach. She was feeling good then. The blast counts were high in her blood and bone marrow, but she wasn’t really sick. I remember thinking this could be the last good day for a while. She still had her blond curls, like in the picture I showed Tina. Her hair was never long, since the treatments were never far apart, but sometimes it got a chance to grow out a little.
When we stopped at the next light, I pulled out my phone and found the email where I’d ordered the previous basket. I replied with a quick message —
Can you have one of these ready in half an hour? I’ll pay double.
While I waited for a confirmation, I drove toward Torrey Pines. Maybe we could walk a bit there first. “You up for a little stroll?” I asked.
“Pretty much always,” she said. She had her elbow resting on the open window, her chin propped on it.
I pulled up inside the park near one of the walking trails. If I didn’t hear from the picnic place, I could find another little bistro with an outdoor section. Right now, the timing was perfect for a moment I sometimes came to witness by myself, when I got a chance, if Cynthia was doing all right and I got away from the hospital in time.
Only one other car was parked nearby. The dirt path crunched as we walked along it, through a smattering of trees, then along rough ground covered in scrubby brush.
“I haven’t made it out a lot since I moved here,” Tina said. “I’ve been to the beach a few times, but not this park.”
I almost blew it again, about to mention the times I brought Cynthia when she was well enough, but said instead, “I like walking here. It’s peaceful after a tough day.”
The ground got a little steeper as we approached a cliff. Another couple sat on the edge looking out.
Tina hurried ahead. “Wow, oh wow,” she said. “This is amazing.”
The cliff overlooked a narrow strip of beach and the wide expanse of the Pacific. The sun was a yellow ball hovering over the water, spreading gold light over the breaking waves.
Tina gripped my arm. “I want to come here every day.”
Her nearness was a comfort and a relief, and I began to come down from the anxiety I’d felt all day after our encounter in the surgical suite. She had her job back. She’d agreed to come with me. The hospital and its troubles seemed very far away.
The evening stretched out like a promise, as endless as the ocean below. And Tina was here.
For this moment, life was very very good.
Chapter 23: Tina
This was the most amazing moment I’d had in San Diego since my arrival several weeks ago. The sunset was incredible, the ocean vast and inspiring. I wanted to paint, to draw, to take a photograph.
Instead I soaked it in, trying to commit it to memory. The slight chill, the salty breeze, the golden light on the water, and this man, tall and strong and warm, right beside me.
As so often happened when I felt overcome by beauty, I thought of Peanut. He’d be five years old, big enough to recognize the enormity of this view. A painting came to me, fully formed, this ocean, this sun, the cliff, and a mother and her boy. The woman would be three-dimensional, colorful, edged in gold. The boy would simply be a shadow, suffused in light, a memory at her side.
I would start it tomorrow. With Albert. I’d pick up some canvas, real paints. He was shaking less. He would paint too. Or help me. I surged with this. I couldn’t wait. I hadn’t done anything for weeks except go to the hospital and work.
I wanted to create again, fall into that heady space where vision and reality collided.
I was so excited, my hands were shaking. It became hard to stay in the moment, but then, everything I was feeling was tied to this experience, this place, and Darion.
He pulled me against him. “What are you thinking about, so serious and intense?”
I let my head fall on his chest. I felt surrounded by him, protected. What had he said in that message?
Let me shelter you.
It had seemed so out of place at the time, overwrought. But now, it made sense. Despite how little we knew of each other, and this major secret he was trying to keep from me, we had been drawn together like a string closing a bag.
Maybe if I told him about my baby, he would talk about Cynthia.
“I had a baby once,” I said, surprised, a little, to hear a tremor in my voice. I hadn’t sounded so vulnerable,
been
so vulnerable, since those days.
He squeezed my arm. “What happened?”
“He was born prematurely.” I realized I was talking to a doctor, so I could be more technical. “Nineteen weeks.”
Darion let out a long breath. “That’s early.”
“His foot descended. They couldn’t stop him from coming.”
“How old were you?”
I looked out over the setting sun, glad for something beautiful to focus on. “Seventeen.”
Another long breath. “Was he stillborn?”
“No, he lived for three hours.”
“The father?”
“Took off during labor. I didn’t see him again for weeks.”
Darion gripped me more tightly. “I’m sorry.”
“He was beautiful. So small. I could hold his little head with my fingertips, and his little butt would fit right in my palm. Not even a pound. Have you seen one like that?”
“I did a few obstetric rounds, but most everything I saw was routine. I never did the NICU.”
“Babies this small don’t get to go to NICU.”
He squeezed me again.
“They let me keep him with me. Checked on his heartbeat occasionally. I’m not sure he actually breathed.” I pulled away a bit. Darion was a doctor. One who might give me answers to the questions I never got to ask. “Do they breathe that early? Does it take a long time for the heart to stop, even without breathing?”
“He must have been getting some oxygen,” Darion said. He looked down at me, and the sun reflected gold in his eyes. “Otherwise, your heart will stop pretty quickly. Within minutes. As soon as the oxygen in the muscles is depleted.”
“Then he did breathe.”
“If he lived three hours, then yes, his lungs had some functionality.”
“Then why wouldn’t they save him?”
“There’s so much to it,” he said, and his voice took on a softer tone. “The biggest one is bleeding in the brain. The real world is no place for babies who are supposed to be growing in amniotic fluid. We just can’t replicate that perfect environment.”
“Do you think that one day babies born that early will be saved?”
“We’ve already gotten the threshold so much younger than before. Just twenty years ago, even two-pound babies were sometimes not resuscitated. Now that would be considered robust. One pound is the minimum.”
“Peanut weighed thirteen ounces.” I held Darion’s gaze, as we both considered how close he had been. A couple more weeks. Just a little more time.
He knew what I meant. “How different your life would be,” he said.
The sun dipped into the water. We watched it kiss the surface, then Darion said, “I don’t have a flashlight. We should head back to the car before it gets fully dark.”
I grasped his hand. “Thank you for bringing me here. It’s beautiful. A good end to a complicated day.”
It seemed the right moment for him to kiss me, and I wanted him to. The emotion of telling him about Peanut and asking my long-held questions pulled me in. I had none of the distance that usually allowed me to pull off a one-and-done.
But for some reason, he didn’t. He just held me tightly and led me back down the path. As we crossed the scrubby ground, I looked back at the cliff, the water, and the sunset. I would come back here. I would not try to capture it with a crappy cell-phone camera. I would paint it. Get it right.
Chapter 24: Darion
By the time we got back to the car, the picnic place had buzzed me saying they had prepared the food. I opened the door for Tina, who still seemed lost in thought and practically vibrating with emotion.
I slid behind the wheel. Darkness was settling rapidly now. But the beach would be fine. All along the waterline at La Jolla, people lit fires. I had only walked along that stretch with a sleeping Cynthia in my arms, but it was the most romantic place I’d ever been. I wanted to go there with Tina.
The Picnic Bistro was not far. “Are you hungry?” I asked Tina.
“Sure. What did you have in mind?”
“I had a picnic made up for us. Have you been on the beach at night?”
“You can do that?” A streetlamp lit up her hair, gold like a halo around the shadow of her face.
“You can. It’s not crowded or anything, but there will be people. Playing guitars. Sitting around fires.”
“Ooooh,” she breathed.
I had chosen the right thing.
The picnic place did not have a restaurant attached, although there were outdoor tables. When I pulled up, a girl ran out with the basket. I had forgotten when I forwarded the email that the previous one asked that someone meet me outside. At the time, Cynthia’s ANC was zero, and her lack of immune system meant I didn’t take her to public places, not indoors anyway. The risk of any infection, even just a cold, was too high.
The beach had been perfect, open, warm, and while she couldn’t swim, just walking in the sand had been a great escape as we transferred from one hospital to the next. A vacation in our new hometown.
But because the email had implored them to deliver to our car, the girl came out this time as well. I opened the car door to receive the basket.
“Thank you,” I said, quickly signing the bill.
“Have a lovely time with your sister,” she said.
Damn. I glanced back. Tina was looking out her window. Hopefully she hadn’t heard, or would assume that the woman was confused about who she was.
I set the basket in the backseat.
“Sister, huh?” Tina said as we drove away. “I guess we really are good at hiding our surgical-suite moments.”
“We should try acting,” I said, silently relieved she hadn’t questioned the comment.
“I don’t know my way around yet,” Tina said. “I don’t have a car. Are we close to the beach?”
“Very.” I pulled out of the parking lot. “In fact,” I said, turning onto the next street, “we’re almost there now.”
The parking lot was mostly empty. Between the onset of winter and nightfall, the families were gone. Only a few couples and a group of college kids hung out on the fringes of the parking lot.
Tina got out of the car and looked out on the inky blackness of the ocean. I pulled the basket from the backseat and checked inside. Yes, they’d packed a thin blanket for us to sit on.
I took her hand again, small and cool, and led her between the posts and out into the sand. We only walked a few steps before she paused to take off her shoes, then lifted her skirt to roll down the striped stockings.
My pulse sped a little at the sight of her bare knees as she stripped her legs.
“Will you be cold?” I asked.
“Not if you do your job,” she said. “Brother,” she added with a laugh.
She created a neat bundle by knotting the stockings through the strap of her Mary Janes and tied it over her shoulder. I could feel the sand filling my own shoes, but I wasn’t the sort to run around barefoot while fully dressed. I’d manage.
The moon was bright and almost full. As I’d hoped, small parties were lighting logs in fire rings at regular intervals. Tina lifted her skirt and stepped gingerly toward the water’s edge. When she got wet, she squealed.
“It’s cold!”
“You’re going to catch pneumonia,” I said.
She turned and stuck her tongue out at me. “You of all people know that wet feet have nothing to do with fluid in your lungs.”
I had to laugh. “You got me there. It’s more a function of immune suppression when your body has to pull its warmth to your core to protect your organs.”
She splashed around, kicking at the gentle waves. “Do you always talk this sexy?”
I set the basket in the sand, and before she could predict my next move, I swept her into my arms.
“Hey!” she said, laughing. “I’m going to get my dirty feet on your fancy doctor clothes.”
“Someone has to save you from a terrible death.”
I carried her back to the basket, but didn’t set her down. Instead, I dropped down into the sand, keeping her on my lap. The dry cleaners could deal with the mess later.
“You planning to keep my organs warm?” she asked. Her hand cupped my neck, and she fingered the hair at my nape.
Had we really just met two days ago? It seemed like forever already.
“I’ll do my best.”
I already knew what she was wearing beneath the jacket, the silky camisole. I wanted to touch it again, to run my hands across her belly. So, I did.
“Which organs did you have in mind?” she asked.
“Your pancreas.”
“What?” Her laugh was like a sprinkle of light. “Dr. Marks, you are very strange.”
“I can’t seem too boring.” I ran my thumb along the base of her ribs. Her face was so close to mine that each of her breaths puffed against my cheek.
“I don’t think I’ve had a boring moment since the moment you walked into my art room.”
“Two days ago or two weeks ago?” I asked.
“Either one.”
Her fingers slid across the edge of my ear. Now I wished we’d taken the basket someplace more private. But going slow, being careful, that was the best course.
My free hand moved behind her head to bring her to me. Her lips were cool, but they parted and her mouth was soft and warm. I pulled her in close, still on my lap. I explored the silky curve of her waist and tugged the camisole from the band of her skirt. When my fingertips reached her bare skin, she sighed against my mouth.
I took my time, grateful to be away from the hospital, able to touch her without distraction. Everything about her was delicate and small. It’s what brought out this protectiveness in me. She seemed so easy to break.
Tina shifted on my lap, turning in to me, her legs on either side of my waist. I reached behind her to unfasten the bra, and now I had access to so much more. Her pert breast fit exactly in my hand, and the taut nipple rolled neatly under my thumb.
She gasped against me, her arms encircling my neck. She broke the kiss, letting her head fall onto my shoulder. I kept one hand on her body but let the other drift down to her knee, where her skirt was trapped against the sand. I pulled it free and slid my fingers beneath the heavy fabric, up her thigh.