The Marriage Pact (1) (30 page)

It’s
better this way,
she decided.
Clean slate. If he wants to see me, he’ll see me.
The nurse
pushing Mrs. Stillwell coughed loudly, and Suzanne and Marci followed her to
the exit. Suzanne went to get the car while Marci waited with Kitty, who had
begun to snore softly in the chair. Loading her in the car was easy; she was
such a tiny woman. Marci thought about what she’d heard once about men tending
to choose wives who remind them of their mothers, and wondered how Jake ever
could’ve thought she fit this bill. She was twice the size of this petite
woman, easily. Rebecca, on the other hand, had been a perfect size two since
puberty.

On
the way to the Stillwells’, Kitty seemed to half-wake, and began singing the
Supremes’ “You Can’t Hurry Love
,”
off-key, in the back seat. Suzanne and
Marci exchanged covert smiles in the front, a relief after the long night of
worrying and waiting.

With
Kitty tucked into bed and Suzanne snoozing on the couch, Marci made her way to
Leah’s house. A bleary-eyed Dave met her at the door with a duffel bag and a
pillow. Never much for conversation, he said only, “hey,” as he handed these
items to her and went back inside.

The
emergency waiting room was empty when she returned. Rebecca was obviously still
downtown at Jake’s or perhaps had wheedled her way back to Robert’s room. Marci
reminded herself that these were inappropriate, petty thoughts at a time like
this. She made her way back down the now-darkened hall, unobstructed by the
reduced staff of night nurses.

In
the smaller waiting room, Leah accepted the bundle gratefully. She nodded her
head toward Robert’s room, indicating that Jake was with him. “Go on,” she
said, and settled in with her pillow.

Marci
entered the room quietly and took the seat next to Jake by his father’s bed.
She was exhausted. Robert was sleeping, undisturbed by the soft beeps and
clicks from the machines. Jake and Marci sat there for a long time without
saying anything; she was grateful just to be next to him.

Around
4:00 a.m. Marci awoke with her head on Jake’s chest, and a long string of drool
pooling on his shirt from the corner of her mouth. She hurriedly wiped her
mouth and his shirt, but it didn’t seem to bother him. As she sat up, she
noticed that he had his arm around her. He shifted to give her space to sit up
straight.

“How
long was I asleep?”

“About
an hour.”

“Oh.
Sorry.”

“It’s
okay. There’s nothing to do right now but sit and stare at him,” Jake said
morosely. “You should probably go home and get some sleep. I know you have to
work tomorrow.”

Marci
looked at the clock. Four a.m. “Later today,” she murmured.

“Go
on; we’re fine here. When Leah wakes up I’m going home to shower and sleep for
a few hours.”

She
stood to leave and Jake grabbed her hand. He looked at her directly with tired
eyes. “Thank you for being here.”

“Of
course,” she said, and meant it.

He
held on to her hand. “Marci, about Rebecca—”

“You
don’t have to explain—”

“There’s
nothing going on with us. I mean, I know she wants something to happen, but
it’s not. I just thought you should know.” He gave her a grim little smile.

Marci
leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”

For
the next three weeks, Marci spent most of her evenings, weekends, and some
lunch hours at the Stillwell’s home or the hospital. She kept a notebook of
Robert’s progress, medications, and advice from the doctors and nurses. She ran
errands for anyone who needed it, and sat with Robert and read to him from his
favorite war histories while Leah and Jake took breaks for dinner or fresh air.

Overall,
his recovery seemed to be going well. He had been moved out of the ICU after a
couple of days, and according to his treatment team, showed very positive signs
for regaining some functioning on his left side. They had started him on some
physical therapy in the afternoons. His speech was deeply slurred even at his
best moments, but he seemed able to understand and communicate pretty well. At
her mother’s suggestion, Marci had purchased him a handheld marker board so he
could write more easily to let it be known what he wanted or needed.

Marci’s
parents came to the hospital frequently, too. Her dad often turned up in the
mornings before his first patients of the day. Arthur shared Robert’s love of
military history and took particular joy in having an excuse to spend an hour a
day reading aloud from Robert’s books. Her mom liked to come in the early
afternoons when she knew Kitty would be alone with Robert and need support.
Each day, Kitty seemed stronger, a bit less fragile, but she was far from
herself. Marci wondered a few times what would’ve become of her if Robert had
not survived the stroke.

After
a few weeks, the hospital staff began preparing the family for the process of
moving Robert home. He had made it very clear, using the red marker and bold
letters on Marci’s board, the option of a temporary assisted living setting was
not
acceptable. So, he would have nursing care and in-home physical
therapy, and would need a special bed on the first floor of their home. Because
there was no bedroom on the ground floor of the Stillwell’s enormous manor,
Kitty’s prized drawing room, which had once been featured in
Classic
Southern Homes
, had to be appropriated for his care.

The
financial cost of the medical equipment and re-tooling the downstairs bathroom
for Robert’s use was not an issue for the Stillwells, but the emotional toll on
Kitty was substantial. She cried as the movers came to pack her beautiful baby
grand piano into a crate for storage, and cried again when the company
delivered the hospital bed for Robert.

Suzanne,
Marci and Leah spent an entire Saturday packing all of Kitty’s most precious
antiques and knick knacks, and the following Saturday redecorating the room to
look like a cozy bedroom and minimize the sterile look of everything. Suzanne,
far more talented than Marci in this regard, even designed and hand-sewed a
beautiful cover for the bed, with holes for all the buttons and switches and
elastic to allow it to move when the bed was repositioned. This seemed to lift
Kitty’s spirits tremendously. When she saw it, she cried again with gratitude
and hugged Suzanne tightly.

The
night before Robert’s homecoming, Marci sat with him while the rest of the
family was at the elementary school play in which Leah’s daughter was 
performing. She read to him for a while, and then showed him pictures on her
phone of the re-made drawing room. “And, of course, when you’re back to your
old self, we can put everything back just the way Kitty had it. I made sure to
take pictures of all of it, just the way it was.”

Robert
half-chuckled and gestured for the board. “U know Kitty,” he wrote, and Marci
laughed. He took the board back and wrote again. He pointed to Marci as she
read it. “Good daughter.” For the first time since his stroke, Marci allowed
herself to cry freely, with her head buried in Robert Stillwell’s hands.

Though
she had seen Jake frequently over the past few weeks, they had not talked about
their relationship overtly, and they had not been physical at all. Marci was
doing her best to be Jake’s friend and keep a respectful distance from
everything else. Inside, though, she was dying to know how he felt about her,
what he thought about their future together.

She
knew now that she loved him, and regretted deeply her doubts and indecision
when he had wanted to build a life with her. She had begun realizing it before
Doug appeared at the door, and the last few weeks had solidified everything.
Maybe Nicole was right: she always wanted what she couldn’t have and Jake’s
rejection had inspired her to go after him. Or maybe she really had always
loved Jake, deep down. The experiences of the last few weeks had brought those
feelings to a new level, opened her eyes to the man Jake was today, not just
the boy she’d fallen for in college.

Either
way, Marci had a strong sense that wherever she was now, there was no going
back. Every time she saw Jake, her heart jumped and hope filled her, radiating
from her belly like a warm shot of vodka. She had become a master of discipline
when it came to holding back these feelings. Of course, the situation with
Robert, not to mention that Jake had told her explicitly to back off, made any
sort of expression inappropriate.

Yet,
she could not help but wonder whether Jake was feeling some of the same things.
Though he said nothing, she sometimes caught him looking at her as though he
were trying to solve a puzzle. They had eaten dinner together a few times,
sometimes in the hospital cafeteria, other times at the Waffle House down the
street. Their conversations were kept to the state of his dad’s health and some
small talk, which she let him lead. One night he observed, when her hands were
resting on the empty table waiting for her omelet and hash browns, “You’re not
wearing the ring.”

His
tone was completely neutral, but it was a shock to her anyway. It was as if
he’d just noticed that she had new glasses or something. “No. Well, I didn’t
know. After everything.”

“Yeah.
I guess so.” He nodded gravely. He followed with, “Jamal is going to Georgia
next year.”

“What?”
Marci was as surprised by the abrupt change of subject as she was by the news
itself. “I thought he was injured?”

“He
is,” Jake said. “But he’s going on a full academic scholarship. I actually sent
some film of him to the business school and they found him some money and an
assistantship. It’s a really big deal for an undergraduate.”

He
was beaming. Seeing his obvious pride breaking through the cares of the past
several months was wonderful. “Wow. So you got his family to come around?”

“Yeah.
I went down there and talked with his dad for a long time. He made me go
fishing with him for like four hours. They were so devastated after the
accident. I think they turned their anger on me, too. I don’t blame them—a rich
white kid from the city capitalizing on their son’s disappointment...”

“But
that’s not what you were doing!”

“I
know that, but you can see how they might feel that way.”

“Yeah,”
she conceded.

“Anyway,
the important thing is that Jamal gets to go to college. And they signed back on
for the documentary. I think it’s going to be an interesting contrast to the
players who do make it to the college teams.”

Marci
sat back and enjoyed the steady flow of Jake’s voice as he continued to update
her on all aspects of his film. It seemed he had missed having someone listen
to all the details of his project and she certainly had missed hearing him talk
so freely. He asked her about her new job and seemed genuinely interested in
her description of Lambert. They never returned to the subject of the ring or
their relationship. Still, she did not sleep that night, analyzing from every
angle what the conversation might mean.

#

Once
Robert returned home and a full-time nurse was hired, things settled down for
the Stillwells, and Marci was no longer needed. She began to focus again on
work: the project she was leading was due in a few weeks and it had been hard
to give the team her full attention lately. She found herself sinking into
Suzanne’s new leather couch in her pajamas by 7:30 every night, eating whatever
could be found in the freezer or ordered as takeout, watching bad television
until she fell asleep.

She
thought about Jake often, and even called him a few times to check on Robert,
but they did not talk for long, nor did they address what was becoming the
elephant in the room between them. After a while, Marci grew so restless and
desperate for information that she actually called Rebecca and invited her to
lunch, hoping she would know more about what was going on in Jake’s world.

This
turned out to backfire, as tiny Rebecca spent nearly the entire lunch talking
about dieting and carbs and her personal trainer. Enjoying a meal with Rebecca
when she was on a dieting kick was impossible, so when Rebecca ordered a mixed
green salad with grilled chicken, Marci followed suit. She could not steer the
conversation to Jake in any round-about way, so she finally just blurted, “So
how is Jake?” as the waiter cleared their plates and she glanced longingly at a
cheeseburger on the table next to theirs.

Obviously,
Rebecca had no information and it was a sore point, because her face went
scarlet when Marci asked and she looked down at the table as though fascinated
by a bit of salad dressing. “I don’t really know. We,” she hesitated, “we
haven’t have much time to hang out lately.” Marci tried hard not to be happy
about this. But not too hard.

#

One
rainy Tuesday afternoon, Jake called and asked whether Marci was free for
dinner. She was, or, said she was and then called Suzanne to break off their
plans for Tuesday Night Margaritas. For the rest of the afternoon, she sat at
her desk and tried to visualize her closet, what was in it that was clean and
would send the right message. She needed something that was casual but not
sloppy, available but not...Rebecca.

In
the end, none of this hypothetical planning mattered because her boss pulled
all the team leads into a late meeting at 4:30, which of course went on
forever. She fidgeted and stared at the clock while he droned on, until he
finally ended the meeting with a snide, “Apparently, Marci has somewhere more
important she needs to be, so we’ll close out here.” Embarrassed, she slunk out
of the conference room under astonished looks from her peers.

Jake’s
car was in front of her apartment by the time she got home, so the grey skirt
and white button-up she’d worn to work would have to do. She couldn’t believe
how nervous she felt, climbing her stairs. Jake had not given a reason for the
dinner date, but it was getting hard to control the hope that they would finally
be having the conversation about “us.”

“You
look nice,” he said as she entered the apartment. He and Suzanne were on the
couch, watching the nightly news, which Marci found funny because she knew
Suzanne would much rather be watching reruns of
Project Runway
at that
time of day.

“Thanks.
Sorry I’m late; I got called into a meeting.”

He
stood and grabbed his rain jacket off the back of a barstool, tossing a, “See
you later,” at Suzanne as he did. The bad news was Marci had no time to change
clothes; the good news was that whatever his reasons for asking her to dinner,
he didn’t seem to feel it was appropriate to include Suzanne.
So that was
something.

Marci
threw down her work bag as she turned to follow him, when Suzanne appeared next
to her as though she’d sprung from behind a bush. “She’ll be right behind you,
honey,” she called into the hallway after Jake.

The
woman could have worked for NASCAR. In less than thirty seconds, Suzanne pulled
Marci’s skirt up by a good three inches and folded the waist over on itself,
unbuttoned the top button of the work blouse, revealing more cleavage than
Marci was comfortable with, and out of nowhere produced lipstick, blush, and
powder. She attacked Marci’s cheeks, eyelids, and lips with a quick brush and
critical eye, and then snatched the clip from Marci’s hair so that her hair
fell to her shoulders.

“But
the rain –”

“Go,”
Suzanne said, ignoring Marci’s protests and kissing her on the cheek. “Have
fun.”

Marci
trotted after Jake, tugging at her skirt just a bit. She saw Suzanne’s point,
of course, but she didn’t want to look like a
total
hooker. She held her
rain jacket over her head as she ran to his car, where he was holding the
passenger door open under an umbrella.

“You
really look amazing,” he said as he pulled out of the parking space. “This
career thing looks good on you.”

She
could feel herself blushing. “Thanks.”

They
went to Alfredo’s, one of their favorite Italian restaurants. The romantic
setting, with low lights and dark corners, didn’t seem particularly significant
because they had been there often enough with the whole group. Still, her heart
pounded as the maître d’ showed them to a tiny corner table in the back. She
ordered a glass of wine to calm her nerves. Jake apparently had the same idea
because he chose a gin and tonic.

Robert
was doing well, Jake reported. Recovering faster than most people expected of
someone his age. He was driving the nurses and physical therapists crazy,
pretending to be asleep when they arrived and correcting their grammar on his
little white board. Marci laughed. He had regained some muscle control on the
left side and they were optimistic he might walk again. Overall, it seemed very
positive.