Chapter 15
15
Lexi
When I get home shortly after ten, Tom is watching more SportsCenter , his favorite thing.
“Hi, honey, you’re home.”
“I’m home.” I stash my leftovers in the fridge and hang my coat in the hall closet before going in to check on him. “How’re you feeling?”
“Much better since my gorgeous roommate came home. Did you have a nice time?”
“We always do. Lots of laughs. I’m going to run upstairs and change. Be right back.”
“I’ll be here.”
Upstairs, I brush my teeth and hair, remove my makeup and change into comfy pajamas. I debate bra on or off and then decide to go without it. I zip a sweatshirt over my T-shirt. I wish I had something more interesting to put on, but all that stuff is long gone now. Maybe it’s time to go shopping.
Oh wait, you lost your job today, so no shopping for you.
I keep forgetting I got laid off, which is comical. You’d think I was independently wealthy rather than in debt up to my eyeballs. But a funny thing has happened in the nearly three years since Jim died. The debt has become just another thing to be dealt with. It doesn’t define me the way it did initially, and that’s thanks in large part to the change in scenery Tom provided with this new place to live.
Anywhere else would’ve run a credit check, required first, last, damage, all of which would’ve kept me in my parents’ basement indefinitely. Because of the enormous favor Tom did for me, I no longer obsess about the debt the way I once did. That doesn’t mean I’m not still worried about it. I am. Very much so. But it’s not the first and last thing I think about every day anymore, which is a huge relief.
Tomorrow, I’ll get busy looking for a new job. For now, I want to go hang with the man who is slowly but surely changing my life once again.
And I’m letting that happen, eyes wide open to the potential implications. I found the conversation about Hallie’s new friend, Robin, interesting. Hallie is going into that relationship knowing that Robin could die prematurely and doesn’t seem to be backing away. The same might be true for Tom. Then again, he might live another fifty years. And if he does, would I want to spend those years with him?
I think maybe I would. Living with him for the last nine months has given me a perspective I couldn’t have had otherwise. He’s shown me over and over again who he really is, and I believe he’s as genuine as he appears.
Even with a perfectly healthy partner, no one ever knows if they’re going to get one year or fifty. Anything can happen at any time. Life is all about choosing how to spend whatever time you have in a way that makes you happy. Tom makes me happy. The very thought of him has made me happy since I was about fifteen years old. The reality of him has proven to be far more exceptional than even my vivid teenage imagination could’ve hoped for.
I go back downstairs, eager to be with him, to maybe kiss him some more, to see where we might go together.
He’s moved to the sofa and seems to be waiting for me.
I sit next to him and take the hand he offers me. “Missed you while you were out.”
“I missed you, too.”
“How are your friends?”
“They’re good. Fun as always. I found out they have a nickname for you.”
“For me?”
“Yep.”
“Are you going to tell me what it is?”
His expression makes me laugh. “I’m not sure if I should. It might inflate your ego.”
His eyes crinkle at the corners as his smile slowly unfolds. “Lay it on me.”
“Tom. Terrific .”
“Huh. Well… I suppose that’s better than Tom Terrible.”
That makes me laugh. “As if you could ever be terrible.”
“You know what this means?”
“I’m afraid to ask…”
“You must’ve told your friends some pretty good stuff to earn me that nickname.”
“I might’ve said a thing or two about the dinners, the lunches, the coffee, the overall TLC.”
He brings my hand to his lips. The brush of his lips over my skin sets off a reaction I feel everywhere.
“They also pointed out that we’ve been ‘dating’ for quite some time without me realizing it.”
He turns my hand to kiss the tender inside of my wrist. “Did they now?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’d be pretty sneaky on my part.”
“That’s what I said!”
“I wasn’t trying to sneak anything by you, Lex. I was simply enjoying having you here with me and getting to know you better—and hopefully vice versa.”
“You did everything right.”
“Did I?”
“You did. You gave me the time to grow into the idea without overwhelming me or putting pressure on me for something I wasn’t ready for.”
“I hope you know that even if I realized it wasn’t going to happen, I wouldn’t have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have any regrets about asking you to move in.”
“That’s what makes you so terrific.”
“I really do dig that nickname.”
“I had a feeling you might.”
“I have some good news for you. At least, I think it’s good news.”
“What’s that?”
“While you were out, I took another look at the discharge paperwork and found where it says sexual activity can resume within two to eight weeks, depending on how the patient is managing any pain remaining from the procedure.”
“Oh. Well…”
“It’s already been a week.”
“Has it?”
He nudges me with his shoulder. “You know that. I’m feeling pretty damned good.”
“Easy, stallion.”
He turns so he’s facing me. “Does the thought of that freak you out?”
“Not like it would with someone else.”
“Do you have other candidates in mind?”
“Stop it! You know I don’t.”
His low chuckle makes me smile. “I love when you get feisty.”
“There’s no one else, and you know that.”
“I do. I know. I worry about us taking things to the next level and whether it’s something you want or something you feel pressured to do, which is the last thing I’d ever want.”
“I don’t feel pressured. I feel… I mean, I’d be having sex with Tom Hammett .” I use my free hand to fan my face. “Fifteen-year-old Lexi is losing her mind over that.”
Still smiling, he says, “How does thirty-five-year-old Lexi feel about it?”
“She feels pretty good whenever you’re around, and she has for quite some time now.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“No way.”
“It is!”
“Before we, you know, take this to the next level,” I say, forcing myself to look at him, “there’re some things you should know.”
“About what?”
“Me.”
He links our fingers as he gazes at me with pure affection and interest. “I want to know everything there is to know about you.”
“Some of it is weird.”
“That’s often the best part of someone. The weird stuff.”
I eye him skeptically. “Said no one ever.”
“No, it’s true. The weird is what makes us different from everyone else.”
“Okay…”
“Tell me, Lex. Tell me anything and everything.”
“All right, then… Remember, I tried to warn you.”
“It’s all good.”
And because I know that’s true, it’s not hard to tell him about the things that hurt me. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an irrational fear of my dad dying. I’m not sure where it came from. There was no inciting event or anything like that. It was just this thing inside me that took over for a while. I remember being very small and creeping into their room in the middle of the night to make sure he was still breathing.”
“Aw, Lex.”
“He was always robustly healthy. That’s the strange thing about it. There wasn’t anything at all wrong with him.”
“Same with my dad until he was dead.”
“What happened to you was my greatest fear. That he’d go off somewhere and never come home. He traveled a lot for work. I wouldn’t sleep for all the time he was gone.”
“Lexi… Seriously?”
“The whole time. A week once.”
“What did your mother say?”
“She doesn’t know any of this. Neither of them does. I’ve hidden it for years.”
“How did you hide the fact that you weren’t sleeping for a whole week from your mom?”
“I’m not sure how I got away with it, but I did.”
“You had severe anxiety.”
“I know that now, and I’m medicated for it these days, but back then… It wasn’t as common of a thing for people to recognize in others. One time, his flight was delayed, and he didn’t make it home when he was supposed to. He called my mom to tell her, but I didn’t know that. I was sure he was dead.”
“I just want to wrap my arms around young Lexi and hold her tight.”
That’s the sweetest thing he could say. “I’ve never really outgrown this fear, but I’ve learned to manage it better. And what’s ironic is that while I was so busy worrying about him, my mom ended up with skin cancer while I was in high school. Then I had to worry about both of them.”
“She’s doing okay, though?”
“She is, but for the five years after her treatment, I was sure it would come back. I was a wreck over that. All this is one of the reasons why it was so upsetting when we weren’t getting along after Jim died. I love them so much. I never wanted to fight with them.”
“They know that.”
“I was so busy worrying about them that it never occurred to me that I needed to be worried about Jim. Not once, in all the years we were together, did I ever stress out about him dying the way I did my parents.”
“Why would you? He was young and healthy and should’ve had decades left to live.”
“I was so busy being happy with him that it simply never occurred to me to add him to my list of panic-inducing worries.”
“I love hearing that you guys were so happy.”
“We were. He was the best. Every year when I got my class list, he’d ask for a copy of it, and he’d memorize the name of every kid. He knew all their little quirks and the things they struggled with. At dinner, he’d ask me about them. Like, ‘How is Emma’s reading coming along?’ Or, ‘Did Clifton come back to school after his grandfather died?’ Or, ‘How is Daisy’s speech?’ On the last day of school for each of the years I taught, he’d pick me up in his restored Mustang convertible and take me for a ride to Skyline Drive with the top down. I’ve never felt so free as I did on those rides, knowing I had the next two months off.”
“That’s such a sweet tradition.”
“I’d look forward to it all year long.”
“What did he do for work?”
“He was a mechanical engineer and ran a machine shop out by Tysons. He’d come into school once in a while to read to my kids, and they loved him. He did all the voices and brought every character to life. He would’ve been a wonderful father.”
“No doubt. Did you plan on having kids?”
“We were talking about it when the first sign of impending disaster struck.”
“What happened?”
“I was in a faculty meeting after school one day when one of the admins came to the door and signaled for me to come out of the room. I thought she must be talking to someone else, but she was pointing at me. Of course, my first thought was that my father had died.” I give him a wry smile. “Old habits die hard. I gathered my stuff, apologized to the others and left the room. In the hallway, Linda, the admin, told me the police had tried to call my phone, but it was muted for the meeting, so they called the school. Jim had fallen down a flight of concrete stairs leaving work.
“Linda said he wanted me to know where he was and that they were taking him to the hospital. She asked if she could drive me there, and I told her I could probably do it myself, but that was a mistake. I’d driven about two blocks when I realized I had no business driving, because my hands were shaking so hard. I kept thinking it was good news that he was well enough to tell someone to call me, right? He had given them my number, told them where I worked.
“I took comfort in that as I drove through traffic that just wouldn’t move on the way to the hospital. Somehow, I managed to call my parents to tell them Jim had fallen down the stairs at work, and my mom said they’d meet me at the hospital. I told her they didn’t need to. I thought, how bad could it be? He was conscious and talking and was able to tell them how to reach me. I told my parents not to come. I didn’t want to inconvenience them. I actually thought about how they wouldn’t want to miss Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! Not to mention the Nightly News , which they watch every night.
“For some reason, it never occurred to me to try to call him. I thought about that afterward. Like, why didn’t I try to call him ? I figured he must be busy if he was injured enough to go to the hospital. I didn’t know what to think, honestly. I couldn’t imagine what’d happened. Jim wasn’t one to fall over things or trip over his own feet. That was my thing. I was actually known for it among our group of friends. If there was something to fall over, Lexi was the one going headfirst over it. Never Jim. I figured somebody must’ve pushed him or tripped him somehow or gotten in his way. I thought maybe he was in a rush to get out of work to beat the traffic to get home before me for once. Not for one second did it ever cross my mind that the fall would be the end of our life as we knew it, even if that wasn’t clear for a while afterward.”
Tom hands me his Stanley cup with the ice water I poured for him earlier.
“I’m sorry. I’m talking too much.”
“No, I want to hear it. Tell me the rest.”
I take a deep breath and release it slowly before I continue. “He was a bloody mess. His head and face were cut. He had a concussion and was black and blue all over. When I asked him what happened, he said he wasn’t sure. One minute, he was on the steps leaving work. The next, he was on the sidewalk, surrounded by people who’d rushed to his aid. A woman who was behind him and saw him fall said it looked like his left leg had given out.
“When I heard that, my heart dropped into my stomach. His left leg had been giving him trouble for a while by then. He’d had weakness in his calf and weird tremors in his thigh. Every so often, it would just give out, and he’d stumble. This was the first time he’d gotten hurt, though. And it was the first time I wondered if there was something seriously wrong with him—and the doctors were asking the same questions.
“He was in the hospital for four days. They ran every test imaginable, all of which came back inconclusive. They ruled out a lot of scary things. He didn’t have MS or Parkinson’s. It wasn’t a brain tumor. I remember being relieved as each of those things was knocked off the list of possibilities.”
“Of course you were.”
“After they’d run all their tests, they sent him home without an answer, and once he was recovered from the fall, we sort of picked up where we left off. We went out to the beach for a week that summer and had friends over for cookouts and went sailing on the Chesapeake with one of his college friends. It was a lovely summer, other than the ongoing challenges he was still having with his left leg. He worked out like a demon, trying to strengthen it. He even did two triathlons that summer, but he was upset that his times were way off from the year before, and he couldn’t understand why.”
“That had to be so frustrating for him.”
“It was. He was always super fit, and to be losing ground so quickly was upsetting. He was hard to be around during that time. Very cranky and out of sorts. We fought more during that year than all the other years put together. Every little thing set him off, and I tried to tell myself he wasn’t himself, but that didn’t take the sting out of being the one he took out his frustrations on. Then he fell again—this time off his bike in traffic, narrowly missing being hit by a truck.”
“Oh God.”
“Yeah, that was bad. You know what’s worse?”
“What?”
“That sometimes I wish the truck had hit him and spared him what was coming.”
“That’s not bad, Lex. I totally get why you’d wish for that.”
“I felt terrible later when I realized that as bad as that would’ve been, it would’ve been better than the long, drawn-out nightmare he endured.”
“That you both endured.”
“My suffering had nothing on his.”
“Sure it did. Don’t discount the enormity of his illness for you, too.”
“He was the hero of that story.”
“I have no doubt whatsoever that you were every bit as heroic.”
“I don’t know about that. Anyway, a few months after the fall off his bike, he fell in the shower, and that’s when shit got real. His PCP was the first to suggest ALS. Jim had been thinking it was that for a while by then, but he’d never mentioned it to me. Let me tell you… Googling that acronym was the biggest mistake of my life.”
Tom winces.
“But as I read through the information, it started to add up to what’d been happening for almost two years at that point. He got an official diagnosis Christmas week of that year, shortly after the fall in the shower. My parents suggested we might want to move into their basement so we could have all one-level living. We were in a two-story townhome at that point, with our bedroom upstairs. Jim cried when I said we ought to accept their offer because we were also going to need their help.”
I haven’t told the full story since the first time I joined the Wild Widows. I’d forgotten how exhausting and devastating it is to revisit that time. “At least we had an answer, though, you know? Even if it was the worst possible answer. We weren’t flying blind anymore. There were resources available through the ALS Association, which was just a lifesaver. I’ve stayed involved with them since he passed. They do such incredible work for people dealing with the most hideous diagnosis.”
“When did you move in with your folks?”
“In March of that year. It was a difficult few months spent adjusting to the reality that our time together was going to be cut short. I was struggling to finish the school year before I took a leave of absence. Jim insisted on still going to work for as long as he could. After the doctors suggested strongly that he not drive anymore, which was a terrible loss for someone who loved to drive, one of his colleagues, who lived near us, made it possible for him to keep working for a while longer by driving him every day. Everyone was so incredibly nice.”
I wipe away a tear, the first one to show up during the telling of this story, which is remarkable. The first few times I told it, I sobbed the entire time. I cried for months after the diagnosis. Every time I was alone, I’d dissolve all over again.
“You know what the kicker is?”
“What’s that?”