Walk on Water (24 page)

“No Mommy, it’s not like that,” I said quickly. “We just started this-this new phase. This weekend in fact. That’s why I was, uh…out-of-pocket—”

“You were having sex with him?”

I nodded and lowered my head.

“For two days straight?!”

Mostly.

“I guess he’s still a jock,” Mommy concluded, laughing a little. “No flies on him.”

I couldn’t believe I was talking to my mother about this. I supposed this was the part where she was attempting to be my girlfriend. Nevertheless she had delivered to me the segue.

“Mommy, there’s something else you ought to know,” I began.

“What he’s not Super Man?” she asked sarcastically. “He takes Viagra? Well, sweetie, he is over forty. Even Luke Sterling can’t be a stud all his life.”

“There was a car accident,” I explained. “I mean he was in a car accident. He got hurt really badly.”

Mommy’s brow furrowed deeply.

“It was a spinal cord injury,” I went on as her expression devolved into horror. “His diagnosis…the injury level…it’s a T-12. Lower thoracic—”

“I know what it means,” Mommy interrupted. “He’s a paraplegic?”

I nodded.

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Rachel! Is that why—”

“It’s-it’s an incomplete. I mean the injury. He has some feeling and function—”

“Can he walk?”

I shook my head.

“He’s crippled?”

I nodded again.

“Well that’s horrible,” Mommy said shaking her head. “I’m sorry for him. But you can’t—”

“He’s recovered very well, Mommy. He’s independent. He works. His life is—”

“Honey, paraplegics have all kinds of health problems. Bladder infections. High blood pressure. Bedsores.”

“Luke doesn’t have any of those things. He’s perfectly healthy—”

“No he’s not. He’s paralyzed.”

Mommy got up from the table and marched off to the living room, returning to the kitchen with her big medical encyclopedia that she had used training to become a laboratory technician. She plunked it down on the table clattering our mugs of tea. Flipping the pages so roughly I thought she would tear them she came to the section of the text about spinal cord injuries.

“Bowel and bladder dysfunction, sexual dysfunction,” Mommy read aloud to me. “What if you wanted to have children? You’re not too old, you know. What if I want a grandchild?”

“Mommy, you and I both know that ship has sailed.”

“Difficulty regulating heart rate,” she continued. “Blood pressure, sweating, and body temperature.”

“I know all about it,” I said.

“Do you?” she demanded and kept reading. “Spasticity, neuropathic pain, muscle atrophy, osteoporosis, gallbladder and renal stones.”

“Mommy, please.”

“That’s right, I am your mother. And I don’t want to see you ruin your life. I feel sorry for Luke. Nobody deserves that. But think about it, Rachel. That’s why Betty Sterling got you and Luke together because…well because he can’t do any better.”

“That’s not true,” I snapped.

“Think about it, baby,” Mommy said reaching across the table to hold my hand. “I don’t want to hurt you, but you’ve got to remember, when he had a choice he didn’t choose you. You weren’t good enough. Now that he’s damaged goods, now he wants to be with you. And you’re just so in love with him you can’t see that. Is that why he’s divorced? Did Christina dump him when he got hurt? It’s a cruel world, Rae, but I can understand Christina. It’s not easy to take care of a cripple. Some women—”

Walk on Water “He doesn’t need anybody to take care of him!” I cut her off, snatching my hand away from her. “And it doesn’t matter to me why Christina left him. We’re together now. And I think it’s wonderful.”

Mommy shook her head.

“You’ll see,” she said. “When you see how many problems you have being with him. The places he can’t go. The things he can’t do. You’ll see how hard it is. Relationships aren’t easy, Rachel. I know you know that. You think it’s your dream come true, but I’m telling you some dreams can turn out to be nightmares.”

But nothing Mommy could ever say could make me want to wake up.
This
was
ours,
like Luke had said. It was odd to think of Mommy and Betty Sterling as allies, and they would probably never know it. But Luke and I were allies too, and I reassured myself with thoughts of how we would prove them both very wrong.

I didn’t call Brian when I got home. Instead I fed the cats and stretched out on the floor to let them sniff me while I stroked their soft coats. Then I took a shower and got ready for bed. I wondered if Luke would call to say goodnight. Last night he had breathed the words on the back of my neck and I had fallen asleep next to him.
Ruin
my life. Luke had rejuvenated it.

Corrine had been right all along. I had been working out to get ready to be naked in front of him, and I was pleased with what I could now show him, ecstatic with the way he stroked and caressed me. And if I was sharing the sacred space of his bed with Stephanie-the-teacher then maybe she was encountering the scent of
Juniper Breeze
on his sheets.

Around ten-thirty I decided to call Luke’s home number. He answered on the second ring, his voice releasing dozens of butterflies in my stomach, not to mention a ready dampness between my legs.

“Hi,” I heard myself practically cooing. “Just wanted to say goodnight.”

“I’m glad,” replied Luke. “How was your day?”

“Good.”

“It went okay with your mom?” he asked.

Had he been worrying about it? Surely he must realize that I was my own person as capable of independence as he was.

“Yeah,” I said easily as if it had. “You have a lunch date the first Sunday in December.”

“Cool.”

“I told her we’re seeing each other,” I confessed.

“She’s all right with it?”

I hesitated. He detected it.

“My wheelchair,” Luke supplied.

“Your politics,” I countered dishonestly.

“What?”

“The Sterlings are Republicans, right? Well the Cunninghams are Democrats. Mommy takes her politics very seriously.”

“What if I told you I was an Independent?” Luke laughed softly.

“Too nebulous,” I giggled. “Cunninghams are not your both/and kind of people.”

“So either/or?”

“Either/or,” I confirmed.

“I can handle that,” he said. “Now—scoot that gorgeous naked body of yours under the covers and get some sleep. I want to see you tomorrow, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

“How do you know I’m naked?” I challenged.

“You like sleeping in the nude.”

“How would you know?” I giggled softly.

“You told me you do…A long time ago.”

“You remember that?” I asked a little amazed.

“I remember everything you ever told me, Rachel Marie.”

I smiled to hear him say my middle name.

“So choose your words carefully,” he added. “They can change everything.”

.

TWENTY-THREE

I
n the days leading up to Thanksgiving, between working and working out, and spending time with Luke, I was basically a visitor to my own house. Fortunately cats were famously independent creatures, so although very loving, T-T and Agatha were okay with my demanding schedule as long as I took care of their needs, including playing and petting time. Mommy’s Sundays of course remained sacred even when I spent the night with Luke, but about the only girlfriend-time I had with Corrine was over lunch at the office. I was really clocking up the miles in my faithful little Corolla, and some evenings I was getting home pretty late or not at all, but I was too happy to feel sleep-deprived. All of my engines were humming in overdrive.

I just wished that my building had an elevator. I wanted Luke to see my place. I wanted to wake up next to him in my bed. Maybe I could move. Being frugal I had a decent savings account, and I could afford to upgrade.

Luke
2.0
was totally charming, and I couldn’t get enough of him. But the really magical thing was that he seemed unable to get enough of me too, sometimes even calling or texting me in the middle of the day just to say hi because he was thinking of me, or missing me. Yes it was a little sappy and a little Robert-like, and certainly not like the usual Luke, who as a numbers man was not one to waste time or money. However, it was also exciting, and I absolutely reveled in the attention, at times having to struggle to write up my case notes due to the distraction of being in love. Requited love. You didn’t usually hear the word
requited
but having spent half of my life in the
unrequited
state, I relished every moment and celebrated the change. I started carrying my cell phone with me all the time.

But I didn’t completely forget that this was early. I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that it was precarious this wonderful happiness I was having. What if his children didn’t like me? And Betty Sterling wasn’t the type to have a sudden conversion experience. Besides exes reconciled. Wasn’t this very relationship actual proof of that?

Corrine wanted to know right away if we had made it official—as in mutually monogamous—but I couldn’t say yes since Luke and I hadn’t talked about it. I couldn’t make up my mind to press for definitions. The relationship was too fresh and fragile, and what if he wasn’t ready then what would I do? I had driven him away before by being so needy. It was absolutely essential that I give him his space even if he didn’t seem to want it that much.

“If he hasn’t made up his mind about you after twenty years,” Corrine had insisted over grilled chicken salad at lunch one day. “Then what’s the point?”

“It hasn’t been twenty years,” I had defended Luke, as well as myself. “It was a twenty-year
gap
.”

“Whatever. You crossed his mind plenty of times. I bet you that.”

I wanted to believe that I had, but I doubted it. Luke’s life had been very full, rich, busy. There were all those photographs hanging on his walls to confirm it. Thank God Christina’s face was not in his bedroom too. No,
this
must be new. Luke was different and so was I. And it—whatever
it
was between us—was good. And
this
with
that
was sufficient to have me singing along with every love song I heard, turning them all into the latest editions of
Rachel’s Favorites
.

Luke was taking the whole Thanksgiving week off. Kimberly, Patricia, and TJ the three younger kids, were flying in Tuesday night, and Luke Jr. was due to arrive Wednesday morning. Luke was very much looking forward to having his children with him for the week and he had made plans for their time together beyond the obligatory holiday meal at his parents’ house. He seemed so excited about their coming that I wondered again why he had moved away from them in the first place; even though I was very glad that he had.

I also wondered how he would have felt about our child—if we had had that child. Was I regretting not having that child now? Maybe. A little. It was ironic the worst fight, the only fight really, that Luke and I had ever had was over that pregnancy, which never was in the first place. He believed in the curve of his trend lines, in plotting his life and measuring it by cumulative data, but it was the outliers on the graph that changed everything.

Still here we were. Here and now. And the trend line was on a wonderful trajectory. Tuesday morning Luke called to invite me to lunch. I was delighted, especially because it would probably be our only
alone time
for the week, but also because he was coming to my office to pick me up which would give me the chance to show him a bit of my world. It wasn’t my home, but it was at least my office, my friends and colleagues. I was proud of the life I had made for myself, and proud of Luke too.

When he arrived in the parking lot outside my office building Luke buzzed my cell.

“Want to come in and see my office?” I asked eagerly.

“Uh, okay,” he replied. “If you want me to.”

He seemed surprised, so then I felt a little foolish. He couldn’t just jump out of the car and run in, now could he? And I couldn’t take much more than an hour away. Why waste time?

“Oh…well, that’s okay,” I course-corrected. “Corrine can come out and say hi.”

“That may be easier,” replied Luke.

As Corrine and I took the stairs down to the office lobby, I made her swear to me that she wouldn’t say something embarrassing.

“Luke’s a very private person, Corrine,” I urgently cautioned her. “He won’t like references to his sex life or his love life for that matter.”

“I’m not an idiot, Rachel,” she returned sharply. “But he is a grown man.”

“I’m just saying—”

“I know. I know,” Corrine laughed easily. “Don’t offend Luke the Magnificent by telling him he is.”

Spotting Luke’s car I waved to him and hurried in that direction, Corrine in tow. Luke lowered the power window.

“Hey babe,” he greeted me.

“Hi!” I returned and we kissed lightly on the lips.

He smelled of a light citrus fragrance and was wearing a forest-green turtleneck sweater and dark-wash jeans. As usual he looked great. Casual, career, after-five-formal, he made it all look easy. While he and Corrine were saying hello I was beaming at him like I had won a trophy.