Dreams for Stones (19 page)

It overwhelmed him, their support and love.
Offering whatever was in their power in order to spare him more
distress.

But what he couldn’t tell them was the
distress from the tenure decision was a pinprick compared to his
worry about Delia and his sorrow over how things had ended with
Kathy.

Kathy was running on the jogging path that circled Cheesman Park
when a man ran up alongside her. She glanced over at him feeling
uneasy, then relaxed when she saw who it was.

“Thought it might be you,” the man said.
“Not many people have hair that color. It’s good to see you
again.”

“Do we know each other?” Actually, she’d
known immediately who he was. The Greg-look-alike district attorney
she seemed doomed to run into whenever she had a relationship
end.

He was wearing a T-shirt from an Ironman
competition in Penticton, wherever that was. Not only a show-off
with that T-shirt, but gay? That was Cheesman’s reputation
anyway—as a place gays hooked up—although Kathy had never
personally observed it. But maybe that was because she didn’t go to
the park after dark.

“You did it again. Charles Larimore. We
played tennis, last fall. You run here often?”

“Occasionally.” Actually, she ran in
Cheesman almost every day, because it was handy and the jogging
track was compressed dirt instead of pavement, and its reputation,
if anything, made it seem safer.

“Funny, I haven’t seen you before.”

“Yeah. Funny.” She kept her tone ironic, not
wanting to encourage him. But actually, it wasn’t funny, it was odd
he chose to run here.

“I’ve got five miles to go,” he said. “Maybe
I’ll see you again sometime.”

Not if I see you first.

He pulled away, moving at twice her
pace.

Over the next two weeks, she did see him,
several times. He always caught up to her, never the other way
around, and he always slowed down to talk to her a minute or two
before pulling away.

He usually managed to make her laugh, and
underlying the humor, she learned he had a sharp intelligence.
Gradually, she stopped feeling uncomfortable at the thought of
seeing him, and just as gradually, he began spending longer
intervals with her before picking up his pace.

She eventually began to look forward to
seeing him, and even felt a tiny pulse of disappointment when she
didn’t. But when he asked her out, she said, no thanks.

The second time he asked and she declined,
he put out a hand and signaled her before he stepped off the path.
She followed.

“What is it?” she said, thinking he had a
cramp.

“You telling me no because you really don’t
want to go out with me, or are you seeing someone?”

“Seems to me I recall something about a
girlfriend.”

He looked at her for a moment before
starting to grin. “Seems to me someone was prevaricating when she
acted like she didn’t remember me.”

Kathy felt the blush warming her cheeks, but
she hoped Charles wouldn’t notice. She bent over, hands on her
thighs, taking deep breaths as a further distraction.

Charles reached out and lifted her chin.
“You really did a job on my self-confidence.” He sounded serious,
but his eyes were full of mischief. “Nice to have it back.”

“About the girlfriend.” She moved so his
hand no longer touched her.

Charles looked abruptly sober. “I no longer
have her.”

“And why is that?” Not that she cared.
Exchanging a few words with him two or three times a week was one
thing, actually going out with him was a whole other thing. One she
wasn’t yet ready for.

“Irreconcilable differences.”

His serious look stopped her from saying
that wasn’t much of an explanation.

“Just to set the record straight,” he said.
“I enjoy talking to you. I thought it would be pleasant to share a
meal and more talk. No strings.” He took a couple of deep breaths
examining her while he did it. “I’ll keep my hands to myself.
Promise.”

What he was offering, she could handle it,
couldn’t she? In fact, going out with him might be just the thing
to take her mind off her current troubles. Worth a try at
least.

“Okay,” she said.

He grinned. “Lucky you agreed. I was about
ready to change tactics.”

“To what?”

“Better I keep them to myself. I might still
need them.”

An hour later, giving them both time to
shower and change, he picked her up at the Costellos. He suggested
a microbrewery on Larimer street where they shared a pizza and a
pitcher of beer as they exchanged the usual get-acquainted litany:
careers, schools, birthplaces, family make-up, hobbies.

She found Charles’s personality was so
different from Greg’s that gradually the physical resemblance
ceased to bother her.

When, true to his word, he didn’t even
attempt to kiss her goodnight, Kathy decided it was okay she’d
accepted the invitation, and probably okay to accept another.

The day Delia woke up, Kathy had come, as usual, for her after-work
visit. Already, the shimmer of summer pollution was stretching over
the eastern plains, and the mountains, hazed with blue, carried
only warm weather apostrophes of snow.

“
Tía
Kathy.” Delia’s voice was a
thread, and she appeared as fragile as paper-thin glass, but the
smile was all Delia.

“Hello, baby. You sure gave us a scare.”
Kathy took Delia’s hand in hers.

Delia frowned, shaking her head as tears
welled out of her eyes. “I can’t hear you.”

Shocked, Kathy looked at Grace.

With tired eyes Grace looked across the bed
at Kathy. “It’s the antibiotic they used. It saved her life, but it
damaged her ears.”

As Grace’s meaning sank in, Kathy’s stomach
cramped. “Is it permanent? The damage?”

“There are things, maybe later, that can
help, but. . . ”

Dizzy, Kathy leaned against the bed, looking
down at the little girl with the bright eyes and enchanting
smile.

It wasn’t fair. Delia had already lost the
tips of two fingers and four toes to the infection. Wasn’t that
enough of a price for her life?

It was what Emily had faced. A sick child.
The long days and nights of worry.

And years of difficulty afterward.

Excerpt from the diaries of Emily Kowalski

1937

Jess moves Bobby to a cot in the kitchen before he leaves for work
every day, but I fancy Bobby would enjoy going outside. I saw a
picture of an apparatus called an invalid chair in the Sears
catalog, and I pointed it out to Jess. He said it was too
expensive, and besides, it was too big for Bobby. He was gruff, and
it upset me.

Then last weekend, after a long spell in his
workshop he brought me a chair he’d made for Bobby. It is very
clever. He used the wheels from the baby buggy, and the chair part
is the perfect size. I made cushions so it will be soft, and
yesterday we tried it for the first time.

When Jess put Bobby in the chair, I watched
him carefully, and I swear his eyes sparkled. He is aware, I know
he is. Just because he can’t walk or talk, it doesn’t mean he no
longer thinks or feels.

I have started reading to Bobby. He loved to be read to before he
got sick. Today, he moved his arm, just a little, and seemed to
point to one of the books. Jess doesn’t believe me, at least not
yet, but he is home so little.

We are both trying to find ways to deal with
what has happened. For Jess, it means working long, hard hours. For
me, it is taking care of Bobby and trying to convince my heart that
someday my life can be as it once was, even though I know that’s
impossible.

Today, I tried to paint again. The brush felt awkward in my hand,
the colors clashed, and I was unhappy with the result. I wonder if
I have to be happy in order to paint. Or perhaps there is nothing
wrong with the picture, only with the eyes full of sadness looking
at it.

I wanted to ask Jess for his opinion, but
he’s always so exhausted when he gets home. He is studying again,
this time for a PhD while teaching at the same time. He often nods
off over his books after dinner. Still, he is lucky to be working,
and it is one of the blessings I count when I try to pray.

Yesterday was Bobby’s seventh birthday. I thought about when he was
still tiny, and we counted his age in days. It was such a happy,
hope-filled time. Every day was an adventure that brought
changes.

Jess and I were changing as well, affected
by the wonder and delight of seeing our dear Bobby grow.

That has all stopped now. When Jess comes
home, I have no exciting stories to tell him about what words Bobby
has learned, or how far he has crawled, walked, or run.

That awful illness has made a mockery of
time, for after all, what is time but the measure of change. Now
the only change in my life is that Bobby keeps getting bigger and
harder for me to take care of.

And I feel I have lost Jess as well. We seem
to have nothing to talk about anymore. How could we let this
happen? Where has the ease between us gone, the sharing of every
small detail of our days? Isn’t it enough that we have lost touch
with our dear Bobby?

The next time Kathy visited the hospital, Delia asked when Alan was
coming to see her.

“He hasn’t come to see her?” Kathy assumed
he had been stopping by earlier in the day, so he wouldn’t run into
her.

“He sent a card. And he called.” Grace
seemed to be avoiding her eyes.

Given his reaction to the news Delia was
critically ill, Kathy couldn’t understand why he hadn’t come. He’d
been so upset, he hadn’t even been coherent.

“He’ll come soon,” Kathy wrote for Delia.
If I have to drag him here myself.

Easier said than done. Kathy’s connection to
Alan had frayed, and now, learning he hadn’t tried to see Delia, it
snapped. But Delia, the only person in the world she would be
willing to do it for, was asking her to pick up those strands and
attempt to reconnect them.

It took Kathy most of the next morning to work up the courage to
call Alan, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she got his
voicemail. A further relief when his voice on the recording had a
hollow quality that made it seem unfamiliar. His message said he
was away from the university for the summer but would be checking
his voicemail on a regular basis. She left a message saying Delia
was improving and was asking to see him.

She debated whether to add that she always
did her visiting in the late afternoon, then decided against it. If
he wanted to avoid her, let him work that out for himself.

Two days passed with no word from him. Delia
insisted on keeping the stuffed animal he’d sent, a unicorn, in bed
with her, and she wanted to see his card at least once a day.

Kathy gave him points for sending Delia the
unicorn, but he lost them with his continuing absence.

Feeling more and more irritated, she finally
called TapDancer Ranch. She braced herself for the sound of Alan’s
voice, but it was Stella who answered the phone. They talked
briefly with Stella saying they’d been away and had just returned.
In response to Stella’s questions, Kathy told her about Delia’s
illness.

“Oh, my. We wondered why we hadn’t seen you.
Does Alan know?” Stella said.

“Of course. I’m hoping to talk him into
visiting Delia.”

“I see.”

Kathy thought Stella sounded worried, but
not surprised to hear Alan hadn’t visited Delia. How curious.

“He’s out in the pasture with his dad.
They’ll be in for lunch in half an hour. Why don’t you call back
then.”

Curious as well, Stella not offering to have
Alan call her.

Kathy almost didn’t call him back. She’d
tried twice. Let his mother do the nudging from here on out. But
when she pictured Delia asking about Alan, she knew she couldn’t
let herself off the hook until she’d actually spoken to him.

Besides, who was she kidding. She wasn’t
just doing this for Delia. She wanted to see Alan again as badly as
Delia did, even if she was upset with him. Something wasn’t right
about his responses either to kissing her or to Delia’s being ill,
and even though she was furious with him, she was also worried.

A half hour later, she picked up the phone
and dialed, her hand shaking, her heart pounding. Once again,
Stella answered. “He’s washing up. I’ll get him for you.”

While Kathy waited for Alan to come on the
line, she distracted herself by staring at the way light caught in
one of the leaded glass panels over Calico’s front door and
transformed into a rainbow of color.

When she heard Alan’s voice say hello, the
phone nearly slipped from her hand. She gripped it tighter and
spoke carefully, trying to keep her voice even. “Alan, Delia asked
me to call you. She wants to see you. I need to know what to tell
her. About when you’re going to visit her.”

There was a pause, then he cleared his
throat. “I. . . umm. . . prob—”

Anger swept through Kathy. The weeks of
worry and stress while Delia fought for her life, and now Alan, not
saying he’d be right there, not even asking any questions about
Delia. Making her do all the work. It was too much.

“Have you ever considered getting yourself a
warning label?” she said, cutting across his stumbling words.

“Warning label?”

“Warning. Do not let yourself care for this
man, because although he gives a darn good imitation of having a
heart, he doesn’t. That little girl loves you, Alan. Doesn’t that
mean anything to you?”

There was a beat of silence. “You don’t
understand.”

Kathy was too far gone in anger to analyze
either his words or his tone. “You’ve got that right. I can’t even
begin to understand how you can do this to a child. It’s
unforgivable. Delia’s been hurt enough. You can’t just cast her off
like this, Alan. She needs you now more than ever—”