I Don't Want to Lose You (24 page)

             
“I'm going to go to the hospital,” she said.  I nodded.  “I wanted to thank you for saving my son.  If you weren't there paying attention to him I don't know-” she trailed off as a tear fell. 

             
I got up to hug her and said, “He's my husband and I want him around.”

             
After she left I called my family and told them what was going on.  I told my sister that we were going to have to miss the Bon Jovi concert that night.  She was looking  forward to it as much as I was but understood.  I told her that if she could find someone else to take her that would want to go she was more than welcomed to the tickets.  Then I called Ralph and told him what happened and where Theo was.

             
I had planned on making spaghetti for dinner and decided that I would go ahead and do it so that there would be something ready to eat whenever anyone got hungry.  Then I went to straighten up the room and put clean sheets on the bed.  I canceled some reservations I had made.  I did some dusting in the house and finally had to tell myself to stop stalling and to go see him.

             
I walked into his room to see him looking much better, but still weak.  I was determined to not repeat the scene I made the night before.  I went over to him and gave him a peck on the lips.   “How are you feeling, love?” I asked.

             
“I'm tired, but not in too much pain.”

             
“Good.  Where's your mom?”

             
“I sent her home,” he answered.  “She was getting on my nerves fussing over me.  She's half the reason I'm tired.  When she started dosing off in the chair I told her to go home.  You just missed her.”

             
I nodded and took a seat.  “I have your book.”

             
“Do you want to read it to me?”

             
I thought for a second.  “Maybe later.  Can you move over a little bit?”  He did what he could to make a little space on the bed.  I moved his pillows over to make him comfortable.  I found a spot close enough to lay next to him  and rubbed the edges his face where his facial hair used to be. 

             
He closed his eyes.  “I remember the first time you did this to me.”

             
“Yeah?”  I remembered too, but I wanted to get his version of it.

             
“Yeah,” he continued speaking slowly.  “I had talked about you all summer long and I was determined to sweep you off of your feet when I saw you at the gym the day we had to take ID pictures.  Ralph and I got to the school early since I didn't know when you would show up.  We kept walking around looking for you and he was trying to keep me pumped up. Then we ran into Brenda and she told me where you were and it was show time.  The look on your face when you saw me was priceless.”

             
“Really? Priceless?” I asked.  I remembered being surprised but not with any priceless look upon my face.

             
“When I saw that I was able to get you to blush, I knew I had you eating out of the palm of my hands.  The plan was to convince you to dump the zero and get with the hero.  And then you did this to my face and I was putty.  Then you whispered in my ear and stuff started happening to my body and I knew I had to get out of there.”

             
I couldn't control my loud laughter.  I was unaware that all of that was happening to him at the time.  “You took off running from little, ole me?” I innocently asked with a bad country accent.

             
“I don't know what it is about your fingers on my face.  I tried to know where you were going to be at all times at school in case I needed you do to this.  It calms me.  It does feel different since there's no hair there anymore, but it's still soothing.”

             
I stopped rubbing his face and put my hand on his cheek and leaned in to give him a tender kiss.  I felt compelled to, as it was the first moment since the night before that I felt like my Theo was okay.

             
“Lo ciento,” he said.  “Tengo mal aliento.”             

             
“Se pero no me importa,” I responded telling him that his bad breath was not important to me and I went to kiss him again.  I got up and sat in the chair before I could get caught by a nurse for being on his bed or for doing something to his heart rate.  I put the book in my lap and used one hand to help me control the book and the other hand to hold his.  Every once in a while when I was reading, he would raise my hand to his lips and kiss it.  I read to him until he fell asleep and then I marked the book and dozed off.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

              It had been a couple of weeks since he had been out of the hospital and, between his mother and I, he had been forced to rest.  He had been feeling better and gaining more energy.  We started with taking walks around the block for some exercise and eventually we were able to make it over to my parents' house for him to play Scrabble against my dad, with the occasional addition of me, and then we would walk back home. He was eager to get back to having a life.

             
I decided that we needed to have a movie night that wouldn't put us into a depression and so we watched “The Lion King.”  Of course, I owned the soundtrack and knew the words to every song in the movie.  I had invited Manny to come watch it with us in the bedroom.  Manny and I got up to dance to “I Just Can't Wait to Be King” and “Hakuna Matata.”  I think we were more of entertainment to ourselves than we were movie watchers because when the movie was over, Theo asked, “Can you start the movie  again so that I can watch it instead of watching you two?”

             
I thought that we would start off slowly with trying to get his list addressed and I continued to keep him clueless on what was to come next.  I told him to be dressed and ready to walk out the door at four thirty.  He wore his black suit and fedora hat.  I wore a red, wrap dress that dipped and hugged in all of the right places.  He opened the door for me so that we could go to my car to see a limousine waiting for us. 

             
“We're going in a limo?” he asked.  I nodded.  “I've never been in one before.”

             
“Neither have I.” 

             
When Manny saw it, he ran out of the house and got inside to check it out. There was so much button pushing and “cool” going on in there that I had to put my foot down and get him out so that we could leave.

             
We started the evening by going to a swanky restaurant in downtown Los Angeles that a co-worker had recommended.  It was thanks to that same co-worker that I got a good deal on the limo, as her cousin was a manager for a limo rental service.  When we were done with dinner, we headed over to the Pantages Theater to see my all time favorite Broadway play, Phantom of the Opera.

             
“I've always wanted to see this,” he said.  “I didn't know it was in town.”

             
“When you’re a fanatic about this play like I am, you know when it's in town and you don't let it leave without seeing it.” It was my sixth time seeing it and decidedly my last.

             
On the ride home I was cuddled up next to him with my head on his chest.  From the movement of his chin in my hair, I could tell that he was shaking his head, but I wouldn't ask him why.  I just snuggled up next to him and remained quiet so that I could listen to his heart. When we got home, he excitedly told his family about our evening and then we retired to our room.  As we were getting ready for bed I kept noticing him shaking his head.

             
I finally asked with genuine concern, “Theo, is something wrong?”

             
He stopped his head shaking as though he had been lost in thought.  “What?”

             
“You've been shaking your head for almost an hour now.  Is something wrong?”

             
“Oh, no,” he quickly said.

             
“Then why are you shaking your head so much?”

             
He sighed.  “I keep going back in my mind to before we got married trying to figure out at what moment you thought that I deserved you.  I don't know what I did.  And just when I think maybe I found it, I guess I’ve been shaking my head because that couldn't have been it.”

             
I walked over to him, kissed his tattoo, wrapped my arms around his waist and put my head on his shoulder and said, “You were just you and that did it.  Don't hurt your brain over it.”

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

              I walked into the house with yelling going on in the kitchen, mostly by Mrs. Cabrera.

             
“You're not using your brain, Teodoro.  This trip can wait.  We're talking about your life.”

             
“Will you stop it already?” Theo yelled back.  “It's my life and I made my decision and you can't make me change my mind,” he said firmly.  “Get off my back.”

             
“Teodoro,” I said forcefully, “don't talk to her like that.”

             
“You don't even know what we're talking about,” he yelled back at me.

             
“I don't have to.  Don't do that and don’t yell at me,” I said.

             
“Why don't you go tell your wife what's going on so she can talk some sense into you since you won't listen to me?” Mrs. Cabrera said.

             
I followed him to our room and he slammed the door closed behind me, which caused me to jump. I had never seen him so angry, not even when dealing with Rosalind in high school.  He stood in the middle of the room with his wrath almost ready to boil over and fist clenched.  It looked as if he was trying to find something to hit or throw.

             
“Theo, what's going on?” I asked him as I walked to him and put my arms around his waist and hugged him, hoping the love coming from me would make his anger dissipate.  I stayed like that until I could hear his heartbeat slow down.  I knew he had gone to the doctor that morning after having some tests done a few weeks before.  Just from the way he was acting and the little bit of the argument that I heard, I knew the news wasn't good.  I put my hand on his cheek and gently kissed his lips.

             
He could barely speak.  “I don't want to tell you this.”  I could see his Adam's apple moving.

             
“I already know, don’t I?” I asked.