The Truth About Fairy Tales (34 page)

             
After the doctor left, the three of us stood in shocked silence. The man who had always been so strong for me and everyone else for that matter now needed our help. I was so afraid of losing him.

             
“Come on, Maggie, let’s go home.” Jackson slowly untangled my arms from around his neck and looked at Sam. “Can you give us a lift to the house?”

             
“Of course. I’ll have Ben bring your car by later. You should think about taking a few days off you know?”

             
“Yes and something tells me I will have to now.” He directed a look at me and Sam smiled. “Ben can handle things with your help, Sam. I’m turning over the management to you. That’s always been the plan.”

             
We left the hospital while I fought to keep from crying and Jackson knew it. He was deliberately trying to keep the conversation light.

             
“You want me to bring you something to eat later?” Sam asked. I could tell he was as worried as I was about his friend.

             
“No, I’ll make you something.” I announced and had their undivided attention. They’d both seen my few miserable attempts at cooking gone bad.

             
“No offense, Maggie, but I want to live.” Jackson tried to make a joke, but I started to cry and he pulled me close. “I’m only kidding. I’m going to be fine. It wasn’t that serious. It was just a wakeup call like Zack said. But I would like to eat and since we both know you can’t cook.”

             
“I can, too. I’ve been taking a cooking class,” I blurted out and shocked the both of them.

             
“Since when?” Jackson asked and then it dawned on him. “That’s what you’ve been up to each week. I just thought you and the girls were out cruising the bars together.”

             
I didn’t miss the reference to when he’d found me at the Club with a date. Before now, I would have been so angry with him, but now I was just so thankful to have him with me. “I’ve been taking classes and I’m happy to say I’m actually very good at it. I can make homemade soup and bread and just about anything else you want.”

             
“I see.” He smiled in that loving way of his. “A regular Suzy Homemaker huh? You’re going to be the perfect wife, little bit.” I think he intended that as an insult, but he had no idea how happy it made me.

             
“I sure am.” Poor Sam had to endure our little sweet-talk all the way home. The poor man was probably swearing off marriage from that day forward.

             
He left us at the door of our house with promises to return the car, but neither of us was really listening.

             
“Maybe you should lie down for a while?” I told him in my best Suzy Homemaker voice, only to be rewarded by a raised eyebrow that told me I wasn’t going to get away with babying him.

             
“Only if you’re joining me there.” Was his only reply before he plopped down on the sofa in the living room.

             
“The doctor said you should take it easy for a while which means…”

             
“He said I needed to cut out the stress from my life, not increase it.”

             
“Am I part of your stress?” I was suddenly serious again. I knelt in front of him and took his hands. “Is the wedding worrying you? Do you think we should put it off?”

             
I saw his reaction to those words immediately. M eyes filled with tears. This man loved me more than anyone deserved to be loved.

             
“There’s no way we’re postponing the wedding, so you can just forget that. We’re getting married two weeks from Saturday if I have to drag you down the aisle. And no, to answer your question even though it is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard come out of your mouth, you are not part of my stress. You’re the one thing that keeps me grounded and the only thing that makes me happy. So please stop worrying about me, okay? I promise I’ll follow all the doctor’s rules. I’ll keep to the diet and exercise plan and I’ll keep my appointment next week. Everything will be fine.”

             
Jackson touched my face gently. “I’m not dying. I’ll be fine. Please don’t worry.”

             
“How can I help it?” I blurted out. “I can’t imagine my life without you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t want to lose you.”

             
“You’re not going to, little bit. Don’t worry. I might starve to death if you can’t fulfill your cooking promise like you claim. Can you really cook? I’d almost pay money to see that.”

             
I smiled and kissed his lips. “I sure can! You feel up to watching me?”

             
“I’d love to watch you do just about anything. Cooking or…anything.”

             
He sat at the kitchen table while I made homemade chicken soup from scratch, along with wheat rolls. I think that night I actually surprised Jackson Riley more than ever before. I was thrilled. My secret classes had accomplished what my grandmother’s training couldn’t. I’d finally learned to cook.

             
“You know I’m going to expect this all the time. Do you have any idea what you’ve gotten yourself into by taking those classes?” He was teasing, but I didn’t care. I wanted to be the perfect wife for him. For the first time in my life, I wanted the house, the marriage, the family. I wanted everything that loving Jackson would bring and it scared me to death. Because today had brought home with complete accuracy just how fragile my happiness really was and just how much I stood to lose if anything ever happened to Jackson.

             
Ben stopped by with Jackson’s car later that night. I was amazed how much he’d changed in the months since we’d seen each other last. He’d matured. He wasn’t the same young kid looking for fun that he’d once been. Jackson and Ben went over a few things concerning the new project, but I put my foot down about working that night. Ben would just have to sink or swim I told Jackson. He needed to stop worrying about the office.

             
“You heard the boss. Sam will help you if you need it.” I didn’t miss the little wink that went between them that told me they were only trying to appease me.

             
“I mean it, Jackson. No more worrying about work. And you can forget about sneaking in calls with Ben like you two are obviously planning. No work means
no
work. And I plan on taking time off to make sure you do exactly like the doctor ordered.”

             
“You’re on your own, Ben.”

             
After Ben left, Jackson and I went over his new diet regimen as well as the exercise routine the doctor wanted him to follow. The suggested walking each day would take some getting used to for someone who was up early each day and in the office.

             
“You’ll just have to make time to do it. We can start tomorrow and I’ll go with you. We’ll walk a few miles and see how you feel.”

             
“You’d walk with me? You know I’m going to get used to that as well, don’t you? What happens when
you
want to go into the office early? Are you going to desert me, Maggie?”

             
“It just so happens I love to walk. My grandmother and I have been walking for years. I’ll go with you as long as you want.”

             
After I got him situated in front of the TV watching the news, I called Jessie to let her know how Jackson was and to tell her that I was going to take the rest of the week off. Jackson insisted that I not tell my family or my friends even though I wanted to.

             
We spent the rest of the evening together watching TV and then went to bed early. All I wanted to do was hold him. I was so afraid of letting go of him even for a minute.

             
That night for the first time in months, I awoke to a nightmare. Not the usual fearful childhood dreams of my past. This time it was something unknown that chased me through my dreams. Some dark dread that I couldn’t name threatened to destroy my happiness.

             
But that night, I didn’t go to my hiding place. Instead I lay next to Jackson, held him while he slept and prayed that my dreams where just that. Dreams.

****

              Jackson and I, after a few rocky moments, worked our way up to walking three miles each day. I made it a point to let Jessie know that I would be coming in a little later each day, because I planned to keep my promise to Jackson. I wasn’t going to let him down.

             
By the following week, when he went in for his appointment, Doctor Jennings was thrilled with his new regimen.

             
The week before our wedding day, Jackson finally pinned me down on our honeymoon plans.

             
We were sitting together in his study—me keeping my usual watchful eye out for his work schemes.

             
“Where do you want to go, little bit?” We’d narrowed it down to either Paris or Miami. He told me he would be happy with me wherever we went.

             
Me, well, I was happy with either one of those choices. “How about Paris then?”

             
Jackson wasn’t going back in the office until after we returned, but he still scanned through emails each morning looking for any problems. So far, things were going smoothly.

             
“Paris it is then. We can stay at the apartment.” The company had an apartment that was used whenever members from the states needed to spend long periods of time there. Ben had used it on his stay.

             
“And maybe now you’ll relax a little?” Jackson asked me. Even though I couldn’t tell him about the dreams, they still haunted me each night. I was finding it hard to sleep these days.

             
Two days before our wedding, all of my family arrived. They were going be staying with us, but I’d told them they were on their own as far as sightseeing. I didn’t want Jackson to have to feel obligated to show them around town. He wasn’t too happy with me for babying him, as he called it, but I put my foot down.

             
The night before our wedding, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned and finally drifted into a fitful sleep only to be awakened by my dear friend, Mr. Nightmare. I was literally shaking all over when I got out of bed and found my hiding place.

             
It was there, hours later, that Jackson found me, still trembling and crying.

             
“How did you know where to look?”

             
“This is the highest place you can go without shooting for the roof. I knew you’d be here. Maggie, what’s wrong?” he asked, kneeling in front of me to take my hands in his.

             
“I don’t want you to die!” Without censoring my words, I finally told him what had been bothering me for so long. “I don’t want to lose you. I’m afraid you’re going to die!”

             
I saw that smile of his, the one that told me he’d known this moment was coming for some time. And then he touched my face. “I’m not dying. You know that. I’m going to be just fine. You heard what Zack said. I’m almost back to normal—whatever that is. I’ll probably live to be an old man.”

             
“But you don’t know that for sure. You can’t promise me that.”

             
“Baby, I can’t promise you I’m never going to die. Everyone dies, but I can promise that I’ll do everything possible, everything within my power to be with you as long as I can. Honey, that’s all, any of us can ask.”

             
“I might not be able to give you children. By marrying me you might be giving up your chance of having children.”

             
“And by not marrying, I’d be giving up the love of my life. Maggie, I want to marry you. You, not anyone else. I want us to spend the rest of our lives together. If that’s with children or not it won’t matter to me. Whether we’re blessed to have our own or if we choose to adopt or even if we choose not to—I don’t care. I love you. I’ve loved you before I even met you. And nothing about our relationship is like any other couple. I wouldn’t want it any other way. I love everything about you, including your little hiding places.”

             
“But what if we become just like all those other couples once we’re married?” There at last was what I feared the most, I realized. That this special bond between us would disappear and we’d become simply normal.

             
“Won’t ever happen, little bit. You and I aren’t normal.”

             
“You promise? You’re sure we’re not making a huge mistake?”

             
He held me close and whispered against my ear. “I’m positive. Tomorrow morning at ten, I’m going to a wedding. I’ll be easy to recognize because I’ll be the happiest man there and the luckiest. Mary Margaret Monroe, I hope you’ll be there with me.”