All the Waters of the Earth

Chapter 29: That Doesn't Scare Me

My phone pinged, waking me up, at the same time that someone knocked hard on my front door.

Jake.

Grabbing my phone, as I crawled out of bed, I glanced at the time: five in the morning. The text was from Jake, saying that he was outside. I shrugged on my robe, went down the hall, and flung open the door.

My handsome boyfriend stood there, looking rumpled and exhausted, serious lines etched on his forehead, his hair completely disheveled.

"What happened?" I asked. "Come in, come in." Instead of waiting for him to move, because he seemed to be made of granite, I grabbed his hand, closed the door and locked it behind him, and then pulled him down the hall, into my bedroom. He followed me, looking defeated, not saying anything. We got to my room and looked at each other. Poor guy was completely lost. "Are you okay, sweetie?" I whispered.

He let out a breath. "My dad. He had a heart attack and went into cardiac arrest. It's bad. He was up here in Santa Barbara visiting friends, so he's at Cottage Hospital. Luckily, he was at a restaurant that had a defibrillator, and they acted fast, and managed to save him."

"Oh no," I gasped. "I'm so sorry. Did you go see him?"

He nodded. "They made me wait. When I finally got to see him, they didn't let me in the room for very long, and he was asleep. I'll have to go back tomorrow, I mean today, at visiting hours."

"Okay." It was so late. He needed to rest. "Come to bed," I said, and I started unbuttoning his shirt. "You need sleep."

He nodded and then just stood there, tired and done in my bedroom, letting me undress him, while he rubbed his eyes and ran his hand along the back of his neck. I did this simple act with as much care as I could, easing the clothes off of him, helping him with his shoes, getting him down to his light blue boxers. Then I got under the covers and made room for him.

And then he crawled into bed next to me, and wrapped me in a fierce hug, front to front, burying his face in my hair.

"Lucy," he choked. "What's going to happen to him?"

"I don't know," I whispered. "But the doctors will take care of him. The thing you need to do is get some sleep so that you can be rested to go see him tomorrow."

He didn't respond verbally. Instead, he just held me tighter, and I could tell that he was struggling to keep it together.

"It's okay to let it out," I whispered into his chest.

Shaking his head into my hair, he refused to say anything. But that was okay.

After a while, his arms relaxed around me, and I could tell that he had fallen asleep. I wiggled so that I was a little bit more comfortable, and fell asleep, too.

The next morning, I awoke with a start, but Jake was already up and out of bed, putting on his pants.

"Sorry to wake you," he said.

"Where are you going?" I asked. "Stay."

"Visiting hours are in a little bit," he said. "I want to go."

I nodded. "Can I come?"

He seemed to think about it for a moment, pausing, and then finally, "Yeah," he said, "although they don't allow kids, so Rob can't come."

"I'll call my parents. I doubt they will mind a few extra hours with their grandson."

An hour later, we walked into Cottage Hospital, hand in hand. When we were finally allowed into Mr. Slausen's room, I was struck by how much Jake looked like his father. Even though he was sleeping, the elder Mr. Slausen had the same handsome face as the younger. Something to look forward to.

"Hey dad," Jake said, holding his father's hand. His dad didn't respond. "I just wanted to come and say hi, you know. I hope you are feeing better."

He let go of his dad's hand and pulled over a chair by the bedside, then reached out and held his dad's hand again. "Dad, it's incredibly rare that you survived what you went through. Incredibly rare. I am so grateful they got to you fast. So now you gotta do it, you know? You gotta get better. Because you survived it and it's like six percent of people who do. So don't let me down, dad. I know you'll get better."

I had never heard Jake talk like this. He sounded imploring, almost like a kid, and also had almost an East Coast accent that I had never picked up on before. I wondered if he was slipping into a pattern from his youth.

But then he looked over at me and smiled. "Dad, this is my girlfriend, Lucy. She's the best thing that ever happened to me. You gotta get better so you can meet her, okay, for reals now."

We stayed until visiting hours were done. Then, instead of going home, I asked if we could go to the beach. There, we took off our shoes and walked along the water, watching the waves crash, and feeling the cool sand from the cool, winter day. We went the entire length of the cove, one way, and then headed back to go to the other end of the cove. As we passed by a group of intrepid January sunbathers, Jake spoke.

"I'm not going to do it anymore," he declared suddenly.

"What?"

"I'm not."

"Not going to do what?"

"Wait until I have a wakeup call like him, to do what I really want to do."

Yay, I thought. But what I said was, "Oh?"

"I'm not going to be a slave to my job anymore. I don't like it that much."

"No?"

"No. I like some parts of it, but no."

"'Kay," I said.

He stopped walking and grabbed me. "You'll help me, right?"

"Of course. Help you how?" I asked.

"Help me figure out what I'm going to do. You remind me of a dream I had. A dream that I could do my art, and, well, I don't want to scare you, but have a family, and just live. Alive. Not be holed up in an office. Not be so irresponsible that my family suffered. But just be able to have a normal life, the kind that I didn't get growing up."

"That doesn't scare me."

He smiled. "Good."