The Seeds Of A Daisy: The Lily Lockwood Series: Book One (Women's Fiction) (21 page)

Mom always told me, “People will do what they want to do—always. If you don’t like how someone is acting or what they are doing, no matter how much you scream or cry, you won’t change them unless they really want to change.”

It is there, on the hammock, on this beautiful Indian summer afternoon, that a door closes in my heart. I feel it. A physical wall goes up. It is over, right here and now. There will be no more screaming or yelling or begging. The person who loves me heart and soul and would do anything in the world for me is not here in this house. She is in the I.C.U. fighting for her life. And the person taking a shower upstairs now means nothing to me and doesn’t deserve a thing from me. Nothing.

I feel empty. Emptier, I am sure, than Natalie’s bed will ever be. I close my eyes and wait. I don’t need to plot or to scheme. Things with Jamie will unravel
organically—it is inevitable. I take some deep breaths and let everything go. I imagine that all my troubles and worries are right there in front of me. All the fears I have of being left alone, all my fears of Jamie cheating on me, all my fears of my mother dying or never coming out of this. I imagine it all.

I then imagine that I clump all my fears together and roll them into a huge ball of fear, dark and angry. In my mind’s eye, I lift this ball high over my head and throw it into the Sound. As it hits the water, I hear a sizzle. The ball floats for a few minutes, and then sinks, lower and lower, until it hits a rock and dissipates. I give it all up and feel a peace come over me. It comforts me like a warm blanket of white calm, relief, and hope.

I lie there on the hammock with my newfound sense of calm, and wait…

I don’t have to wait too long. I hear the screen door open. I’m sure Jamie thinks I’m asleep, because he comes over and gently kisses me on the cheek. I open my eyes and smile.

“What d’ya say, wanna go for a sail?” he asks. He looks so handsome and smells like vanilla soap.

“Sorry, we can’t—I spoke with the hospital and I need to get over there soon.”

“Well, I’ll come with you,” he says.

I look at him and realize I’ve never really seen him before, not the real him.

“That’ll be great, it really will,” I say. “They told me they’ve finally gotten rid of all the paparazzi.” I wait and there it is: a look of disappointment comes over his face.

Jamie’s phone rings again, indicating the arrival of another text. Natty is certainly blowing up his phone.

“Oh, Jamie, your phone rang, but I was sleeping and I was too lazy to get up and answer it,” I say innocently.

He walks over to the table, picks the phone up, and reads the text.

“SHIT!” he says loudly.

“What’s up?” I ask. I know that what comes next will be a true test of Jamie Fleming’s acting skills.

“That’s the assistant director, Fred. They need me back on set for a 5:00 a.m. call.”

Pretty convincing—maybe not Oscar-worthy, but surely Golden Globe-winning.

“Jamie, how can they do this to you? You just got here. Don’t they know I need you here?” I say, in a very Emmy-worthy performance. And what kind of simple idiot is Jamie? He knows I’m friends with the director and that I can easily find out the truth. What an asshole!

“I know, babe, but what can I do? I have to go back—I’m the lead,” he says. He sounds so disappointed. Does he have tears in his eyes? I imagine him accepting the Academy Award for the category of BEST CHEATING BOYFRIEND IN A LEAD ROLE. I can hear his speech, which would be a different take on Sally Field’s unforgettable one: “Thank you—
I
love me—
I
really, really love me…”

“Babe—did you hear what I said?” he asks. “I said I better try to change my ticket for later on today or tonight.”

“Well, you’re probably best off if you head for the airport as soon as possible. I’ll call a car service. Why don’t you see when you can get a flight?”

“Whoa, hey, hang on. It feels like you want me to leave.” He looks worried.

“Of course not, but I don’t want you to have any problems with Harvey or the studio,” I reply.

“Yeah, you’re right.” He walks over to me, kisses me, and says, “You’re the most wonderful and understanding woman. I’m really a lucky guy.”

I get out of the hammock, “No, Jamie, I’m the lucky one. I want to thank you for coming. Your visit really means so much. Now you should probably get on the phone and try to change your flight.”

I feel empowered, something I have never felt with Jamie before. I walk inside. I can’t get away from him fast enough. I stop in the living room and pick up the photo of my mother and me—the one where she is wearing the leather jacket—to bring to the hospital. Then I see a small photo of my mother and take it out of its frame. It shows her gardening. Whoever took the picture must have called her name and then snapped the pic. She looks a bit surprised, but beautiful and natural. The camera catches the light on her face almost as if it had been planned.

I go upstairs to pick up my cell phone and the diary, which I plan to read to my Mom later. Maybe something it in will spark a reaction.

I walk downstairs and see that Jamie looks excited. He says, “Babe, I got a flight out. It’s leaving in three hours—think I can make it?”

“If you get your stuff and leave now.” In a few minutes, I plan to say goodbye forever to him.

We kiss goodbye. It is the last kiss I will ever give him. I’ve wasted thousands of my kisses on him. I won’t waste another. He tells me he’ll call me from the airport right before he takes off.

I wait ten minutes after his car pulls out of the driveway and head for the sailboat.

I spend the next couple of hours drifting around the Sound, not going too far. There is hardly any wind, so I stay close to shore. The boat rocks back and forth. I let my mind go blank and my body soak up the stillness. A week earlier, if I had read the same text, it would have been a disaster of epic proportions. But now I have no fight left in me for Jamie. I have to muster up all my energy for the days ahead with Mom.

Why hadn’t I realized sooner what a selfish tool he is? I get a knot in my stomach thinking about my mother and how she was right about him all along. How difficult it must have been for her, knowing that her only daughter was spending her precious time and energy—and oh yes, money—on him.

I feel stupid, stupid, stupid. But like Grams used to say, if you recognize your mistakes, you can always do better. And Jamie Fleming was indeed the biggest mistake of my life.

I bring the boat back and tie it to the dock at 4:30 p.m. Fifteen minutes later, I text Jamie:

Good luck to you and Natalie. Have fun at the spa. Tell her that now not only will her arms and her bed be full—but that she’ll also have her hands full with you. Don’t call me anymore. I will have all your things put in storage and I’ll send you the key. Thanks for the visit. You did me a huge favor!

I
am alone in the hospital room with my mother. They just brought her back from taking the scans. The nurse tells me that they hope to get the results early the next day. I place the photos of all of us around the room for her. But her fixed stare has not changed.

I tape the photo of her on the wall behind her bed, so that the doctors and nurses taking care of her will see who she really is, what she
really
looks like.

I put some lip balm on her chapped lips and rub some skin cream on her arms and legs, all the while talking to her and telling her about my day with Jamie. I want her to know that she was absolutely right about him and that I had been blind to the real Jamie—that in the false Hollywood spotlight and California sun he had appeared to be someone he was not. I add that in the stark light of reality and in the glare of trauma and despair, I had finally seen him for what he truly is: a shallow guy looking for his reflection in everyone else’s eyes.

After I got back from sailing earlier that afternoon, I went online and saw that Jamie had been practically mobbed at the airport coming into JFK the night before. How the hell did all those paparazzi know to be hanging out at JFK when he landed? The answer was glaringly obvious: He had had his publicist spread the word. He turned the visit to be by my side, in my hour of need, into a publicity stunt.

The phone rings. It’s Franny. “Hi, Lily, how’s it going?”

“Hold on, Franny, let me move to a place where I can talk.”

I walk down the hall and into the waiting room. Thankfully, it is empty.

“She’s the same, Franny. Her eyes are staring straight ahead, she’s not moving, not talking. We’ll know more when the scans come back. We have a top
neurologist at New York Hospital awaiting the results. Then maybe we can figure out the next steps.”

“I see.” She hesitates. “Listen, I hate to do this to you, but the show wants to know when you’re coming back. They need you for the last two episodes.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I wish I was. You know they do have a schedule and a script. In light of the Emmy nomination, you know they beefed up your part and made you an integral part of the storyline.”

“Franny, I can’t leave now. I’ll know more, probably tomorrow. Can you tell them that?” I ask.

“Of course, sweetie, whatever you need,” she says. She sounds relieved. “You know, you sound different—more calm. Are you on something?”

I laugh. “No, Franny I’m not on anything but a huge dose of reality. I do feel
different
, maybe more in touch with things than I ever have. I can’t put my finger on it.”

I tell her all about Jamie and the publicity stunt he pulled at the airport.

“He is such a piece of shit,” she says emphatically. Then she laughs. “Bet he was surprised when he got your text.”

“I don’t know, I haven’t heard anything, so I’m assuming that either he didn’t get it yet or he doesn’t know what to say. I told him not to call me anymore. We’ll see…anyway, truthfully, he’s really not important to me. Listen, Franny, I gotta get back to my Mom. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

When I return to my mother’s room, the nurses are in with her and have the curtain pulled around her bed for privacy.

“Can I come in? It’s Lily,” I ask.

“Can you wait, Lily? We’re just turning your mother,” the nurse answers.

I start to walk out of the room, but then I think about what Daisy would do. If it were me lying helpless on that bed, would she walk out the door, or would she want to know
everything
that was going on? The answer is simple: She’d be right in there, up-close and personal. And she would mow anyone down who stood in her way.

I pull the curtain open just enough to step inside. The two nurses look surprised to see me there. “I said, we’ll be done in a moment,” the dark-haired nurse says, clearly annoyed.

I read their nametags. “Trish and Eden, please get used to me being involved with my mother’s care.”

The nurses have my mother in mid-turn, using the blankets and sheets as a way of lifting and turning her on her side. I look down and gasp. There is a huge, horrible sore on her back.

“What the hell is that?” I point to the open wound.

“When patients are immobile and in bed, their skin starts breaking down and they get bedsores. We’re doing all we can to treat it.”

I calm down. It isn’t going to do my mother any good to antagonize her nurses. I excuse myself, go into the waiting room, and call Tommy. I ask him to go online and look up bedsores: What causes them and what can be done to heal them. I wait. He tells me that on the Mayo Clinic website it says that one of the ways to avoid bedsores is to turn a patient every fifteen minutes, trying not to stretch their skin. I realize that even though there is one nurse to every two patients in the I.C.U., we need extra help.

“Tommy, do me a favor?” I ask. “Please get me round-the-clock nurses for Mom. Can you please find nurses who’ve worked with people in comas before? I want them to start as soon as possible.”

“Wow,” Tommy says.

“Wow, what?”

“You sound exactly like Daisy,” he says.

On the way back to my mother’s room, I stop by the nurses’ station to inform Doris that there will be private nurses coming in to help care for my mother. I make sure to tell say that I don’t want to ruffle anyone’s feathers. I also ask her to look into getting my mother a low-pressure or alternating-pressure air mattress bed. Tommy told me that these mattresses allow blood to flow to all areas on the body to heal bed sores. They circulate airflow to keep the patient dry, preventing moisture buildup and skin breakdown.

“Well, I’m certain I won’t be able to get her one of
those
. They are few and far between in the hospital,” she says condescendingly.

I give her my best smile, even though I feel like reaching over and smacking that look off her face. “Doris, I have faith in your abilities to be resourceful. I’ve heard amazing things about what you’ve done for your patients,” I tell her convincingly.

She is pleased with the compliment. “Well, I’ll do my best.” I thank her and return to my mother’s room. She is lying on her right side, now that the nurses have arranged pillows on her left side to prop her up. I move my chair as close to her bed as I can and tell her that I’m getting private nurses and a comfortable mattress for her. I open her diary and read aloud: