Sydney's Song (36 page)

We talked about the events while he was “away”. I told him I had never had a brother or a sister before. Now because of him, Eve and Lance had become my very dear sister and brother.

“Super,” he approved. “As long as your feelings towards me aren't brotherly.”

I laughed.

“I love that laughter. Can't get enough of listening to you. How's the elephant today?”

And I laughed louder.

“Sydney, I'm talking romance here, and you find it hilarious?”

When I arrived at the hospital at the usual time, Pete's eyes lit up with so much happiness. Yup. No more blank stares. And his one good arm could hug me back.

“You smell so good,” he kissed my cheek affectionately. “Honey, what's your weight today?”

“And good morning to you too.” I hugged him tighter, loving his scent and his comforting warmth. Nurse Fleming from the night shift had earlier wheeled him to the shower and washed his hair clean.“How are you feeling?”

“Miserable,” he waved his good hand at his casts.

“You have
one
good leg.”

He burst out laughing.

I brushed his very beautiful hair and secured it in a ponytail. When I was shaving him, he traced a line with his finger down the side of my cheek to my jaw, watching me closely with smouldering intensity. I used to shave his face effortlessly. But now the exquisite feelings that I had only known with him made me clumsy. My hands were unsteady. My breathing at times was suspended, my heartbeat erratic.

“You're tired,” he said. “Didn't you sleep well?”

I considered him for a moment. With his short-term memory loss, Pete freaked out when asked about things he forgot or about hazy memories. He hated it when people asked,
“Do you remember?”
or

“Don't you remember?”
He also said the most useless instructions were
“Don't forget”
and
“Please remember.”

“Darling, will you get offended if my question starts with
‘Do you
remember?'”

“You can ask me anything. It's your privilege.”

“Okay Pete. Question is, do you remember that you phoned me this morning?”

One October afternoon Pete beat me easily at chess.

“Sydney isn't much of a challenge at chess,” he teased me.

“She did very well!” Nurse Dalziel loyally defended me. “She just didn't anticipate that unprecedented attack on her queen.”

We burst out laughing.

Seeing Pete's smile, I felt relief. I had no intention of reminding him of how sad he had been yesterday.

Pete's short-term memory loss meant big chunks of recent events—events between his accident and now—could be deleted from his memory. The time range of “recent” varied. These “blanks”could happen after five minutes, several hours, the next day, or more.

The size of the “blanks” varied too. At times he forgot an entire“episode”. At times he only forgot parts of the scene, with some hazy recollection. But there were also moments he remembered an event with total clarity.

Now and then he lost his sense of time, feeling that days had passed when actually it had only been one day—or the opposite.Often he woke up blurting out strange questions for seemingly no reason. At times, they were questions he had previously asked and had been answered.

With brain exercises,
sometimes
he could retrieve
deleted items
. I had to remind him about things again and again until he eventually remembered them. I usually took notes to help remind him of what was being discussed or done during his appointments. In a notebook I jotted down his questions and people's answers to help him recall them later. Not always successfully.

Today, seeing his smile, I was glad he had forgotten yesterday.

Yesterday, they opened the cast on his leg for a whole day of freedom, leaving it unplastered. This gave me high hopes that his leg had healed. They told us not to move it until they were done checking the scans. But at the end of the day they decided the plaster had to go back on. Pete and I had howled simultaneously. We then looked at each other in surprise, never seeing each other
this
upset.Pete had angry, disappointed tears in his eyes, just like I did. But as he looked at me, his eyes softened. We ended up laughing at the whole situation.

“Look on the bright side,” I hugged him. “Your arm is out of the cast.”

His right hand was limp though. It flopped uselessly at the wrist.And his shoulder pain made it difficult for him to lift his arm.

Streams of friends cheered us up. When they heard of Pete's“return”, many showed up, while those overseas sent emails and phoned. I discovered Pete was everybody's best friend. No surprise there. He could be calm, he could be vivacious. At times playful, at times serious. With his balanced temper and personality, in happy or troubled times Pete was simply great to spend time with
.
What's special was, he kept in touch with each one of these friends.

In a happy turn of events, my friend Alex reached the US and visited us. Right away the guys chatted animatedly about travels. Oh, the travellers, they had met! They reminisced about particular places both had visited, exchanging experiences and information in full enthusiasm. And you know, how disgustingly world weary they could sound at times.

“Sweetheart,” Pete caught my amused smile, “Are you laughing at us?”

“Yes Sydney,” Alex turned to me. “What have you learnt, away from home? What do you think about Americans?”

“Well boys,” I obliged and put in my two cents, “to say all Americans are obnoxious is like saying all Aussies are bogans.”

Boston in fall was gloriously colourful. Pity Pete could not go outside. To alleviate his boredom I offered to take him to an outer corridor.

“Pete, I hate it that you have to go through all this torture,” I helped him painstakingly move to his wheelchair.

“Don't worry, honey. Trials and afflictions are there for some reason. They make you a better person. When you pass an exam, you go to the next level, don't you?”

“What an insight. But why? Why Pete? Ever stop to reflect why all this has happened? Why you? When you've always been such a good person! So undeserving of injury.”

“Darling, so loyal you are. But look around. Some babies are born blind. Some with Down syndrome. Who says they deserve that?”Trust Pete to say something profound. “But have compassion for everyone. The people who are perfectly normal, who's to say that they don't have their own trials? Some suffer more than people with disabilities, you know.”

“But you're in pain!”

“Lighten up, love. Nobody should whine. I refuse to wallow in misery. Why should our limitations give us an excuse to brood in gloom? I sure don't enjoy brooding! You believe in God, don't you?In the next life, there'll be no more suffering. That's why life is easier when we have God to explain the things beyond human understanding. When we're all given new bodies in the next world, all disabilities will be gone.”

He smiled his most soothing, relaxed smile that immediately calmed me. How sensitive he was of my feelings. How astute. How well he knew me. I couldn't help falling in love all over again. Right there and then, looking into his
very
peaceful eyes, I knew I was home.

“How do you know that?” I wheeled him outside. With one arm, he could hardly push the wheelchair himself in a straight line. “Let's look at it more deeply during tonight's phone call.”

Pete and I sometimes discussed philosophy during the night. At times we ended up talking for hours. He didn't define faith as something that could not be proven, or was logically inexplicable.For example, he said angels don't have wings, because you only need wings to travel through the air. When angels come from a parallel world to ours, they don't pass through air as the medium. That's right. Don't get me started on the many topics we discussed.

Pete's analytical powers were not affected by his brain injury.

He said we weren't meant to stay dumb. He said there are three stages of human development. First is the physical state, when we all act on basic instincts. Later on we are meant to progress to the moral state, where our reason and conscience start to guide our actions.And lastly, reaching the spiritual state, we will attain full control of our faculties, body and mind. Here is the-soul-at-ease, we rule our desires instead of being their slaves.

I loved how he stimulated my mind. I loved getting lost in a discussion until we lost track of time. To me, Pete never ceased to be interesting.

“Honey,” he called now as I stood facing the afternoon sunshine.“What's your weight today?”

Amused by this repeated question, my lips twitched with a smile as I glanced back at him. Now that he was better, his real personality returned in full force. Calm. Selfless. He stopped worrying about himself and started worrying about me.

“I'll tell you next year.”

“Darling, why aren't we married yet?”

I searched his face. Now when Pete had an idea or question, he latched on to it. When his mind found the answer unacceptable, he would not veer away from it. One thing had changed for sure. Unlike he often did in Sydney—perhaps subconsciously—Pete did not view me as a little girl anymore.

“I want to look after you so much,” he said with a yearning look.

“Say again?”

“You heard me. I wanna care for you.”

“This from a man in cast?” I laughed. “Just how are you going to accomplish that?” I looked at his still useless arm and leg pointedly.

“At least I'm good to order you about,” he grinned up from his wheelchair. “I plan to make sure you look after yourself.”

“You're so wonderful, d'you know that?” I bent to give him a big hug. “Now cut that out. Sounds like a proposal, you know. You'll be in hot water if I say yes.”

“Is that a yes?” Seriously. Very seriously. “I want you to say yes.”

A shiver ran through me. I lost my smile and went still. My heart stopped. Then slowly thumped with fear. And… elation?

“Is this—for real?” I asked haltingly, shaking in my shoes. “Are you really—asking me?”

“Yes. For real. All I am, all I want is to be with you. Marry me and be happy!”

Getting married had crossed my mind a couple of times, but each time I dismissed it, thinking we were too young. In my mind, it would not happen for another ten years. Still, I
had
thought about it because I wanted it. The freedom to be with Pete night and day and call him my own. To love Pete with everything I was and had. To give without fear. And above all,
to belong
.

“
Please
…” he pleaded. “I'm not talking about the big elephant here—we've always been together and I know how committed you are to me. Sure the getting-physical part will be my great joy. But getting married is so much more than that. This is about something closer and more intimate to me, something I deeply care about. And I
care
for you… I want to
love
you… Do I make sense?” He forked desperate fingers through his hair.

“It's
not
about convenience, though it'll be a bonus. It's
not
about other people's recognition either, though I do want to shout my love for you to the world.
Please
…” Oh… those earnest eyes! “I feel—I feel it's necessary that we completely
belong
with each other. I've been thinking a lot about this. All this time I've been recuperating. I understand many people don't value marriage, and it doesn't seem fair asking you to get married so young. While I'm sick, as well. But you aren't going to look after a sick man forever. I'll get better, and we'll do loads of fun stuff. Staying young for always. I—”

“Pete?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

“Er…”

“Just stop babbling. Shut up.”

He looked at me in trepidation.

And I launched myself at him. I hugged him. Kissed him.

“The months when you were ‘gone' Pete, I wanted
so
much for us to completely belong to each other. I was terrified of losing you again. So yes.” Joyous tears spilled over. “Yes Pete. Yes!”

“Sydney I can't live without you,” he said excitedly, his speech accelerated by a rush of emotion. “You won't regret this, I promise!If you're ever disappointed in me or in something, let me know and we'll work on it together.”

“Cool. I'll hold you to that.”

“Oops, on that note…” He stopped to look down at his wheelchair and shook his head. “Oh, heck, shouldn't I have kneeled down for this?” He smiled sheepishly. “Or at least I should've had roses. And a ring.”

“I know… You're forgiven ‘cause I'm the happiest of all girls.”

“And about to be happier,” his hand shot to muss up my hair. “A-s-a-p?” He asked eagerly, eyes sparkling.