Kate #2
For the first time, he doesn’t fight me on it. Wincing and grinding his teeth with every slow movement, he drags himself into a sitting position and exhales long and slow.
He didn’t bother to shave in the hospital, but it seems he attempted to this morning, based on the patchiness of his thick, dark brown facial hair. I press my lips together to stop from inappropriately snickering about it.
He trembles as I pour the assorted tablets and capsules into his clammy hand, and he swallows them along with the entire glass of water. Then he leans back against the pillows, shutting his eyes and surviving in a series of shallow, calculated breaths.
Meanwhile, I get to work cleaning up. Quietly. Quickly. My own exhaustion be damned.
By the time everything’s tidy, with the windows open for fresh spring air, he’s starting to perk up a bit. He looks at me with his eyelids mere slits in a pale, sad face.
“Feeling any better yet?” I perch on the edge of the bed and place a cool cloth across his forehead.
“Just put me out of my fucking misery,” he croaks.
I try to smile at that, but it doesn’t come. There’s no room for dark humor when the wounds of almost losing him, of feeling my soul slowly detaching from my own body as I watched him lying near-lifeless in a hospital bed, and of losing our baby, are still so fresh.
I fight the urge to tell him all that. And it’s damn hard. I’m sitting here, staring at my husband’s face, knowing in any other timeline, I wouldn’t hesitate to share my deepest, darkest thoughts. Jackson would welcome them.
But the man looking back at me is sick, and hurting, and doesn’t know me well enough to shoulder my pain.
I clear my throat. “Let me grab you some breakfast. The kids made pancakes…but Odessa should be catching the school bus by now, and Rhett’s not going to question it if I grab something else for you. Maybe some toast?”
“Pancakes sound delicious…I, uh, heard the kids earlier.”
“Shit, did they wake you up? I’ll remind them to be more quiet tomorrow.”
“No, it was nice.” He shuts his eyes for a moment. “I woke up confused—I always wake up confused as hell. And it was nice to hear sounds of home. I was gonna come out there but…” He gestures weakly around the room.
“Is that what happened here?” Without a second thought, I reach out to touch his face. The coarseness of his beard scratches my fingers and palm, and he leans into my touch.
“It looks bad, huh?”
Air blows from my nose in a laugh. “It doesn’t look great. The beard was growing on me, actually. You were always clean-shaven before.”
When I pull my hand away, his instantly moves to cover the same spot. “I noticed that in the family photos you’ve been showing me.”
“After breakfast, you can sit on a chair in the bathroom, and I’ll shave the rest for you.”
“You don’t have—”
My eyebrows draw together. “What have you learned about saying no to me?”
“That you’re a bully.”
“I’m not a bully. I just love you, Jackson.”
“I know you do….” His words trail off. Stripped of all pretense, the unsaid truth hangs heavily between us. The missing I love you, too.
My palms slap the tops of my thighs and I stand. “I’ll be back with breakfast.”
Thankfully it’s only Cecily and Beryl in the kitchen—they inform me Rhett’s upstairs coloring more pictures to give to Jackson—and neither of them push me to talk.
So I put together a breakfast plate, including a reheated heart pancake, and head back to the bedroom with a gentle reminder not to drop more L-bombs lingering in the back of my mind.
It’s hard for me, especially with him back home, to remind myself that new lines exist between us. I can’t kiss him. Can’t slide under the covers and tuck myself into the crook of his arm. And I can tell him I love him, but I can’t expect to hear it back.
I understand why he can’t give me that yet, but knowing doesn’t make it any less of a letdown.
Handing the plate over, I clarify, “The weird-looking pancake is made with extra love. It’s meant to be a heart…Rhett’s artistry.”
Jackson looks down at the plate, and his head lists slightly left. “If you tilt your head and close one eye, it’s a heart.”
“Spoken like a true dad.” I watch him take a slow, cautious bite, and when he lets out a small moan of relief at the taste, I settle in next to him on the bed.
And suddenly he’s nudging my arm, muttering my name, pulling me from the waning moments of a dream.
I paw at my face, removing hints of drool from the corners of my mouth. “Oh God, did I fall asleep?”
“Almost immediately. You leaned back and I think you were snoring before your head even hit the headboard.”
Once I blink enough to focus, all I see is Jackson on his side, elbow propping up his upper body.
He certainly doesn’t look sickly. Rather, he looks so much like he often does early in the morning, waking me with a kiss and a wandering touch.
When he fulfills my every need before I have them, leaving the sheets rumpled and my face flushed.
My breathing stutters, and I swallow down the thought…until he looks down at me with a smile that patterns my vision with sunspots.
I blink rapidly until all inappropriate thoughts have dissipated. “Sorry, I guess I was tired.”
Understatement of the year.
“Payback for all the times I’ve nodded off while you were talking.”
“Are you feeling better now?”
“I am. Thanks for bullying me into taking meds and eating breakfast.”
“Now it’s time to bully you into taking care of this mess.” I take advantage of the opportunity to stroke the uneven texture of his beard—soft and curly in some spots, short and spiky in others. The warmth of his skin melts my palm, and for a heartbeat, everything feels normal again.
“Suppose you won’t let me have a choice.”
That sense of normalcy gets the better of me, and I cheekily respond with, “Not if you want to stay happily married to me.” Followed by, “Um, I mean…sorry, I wasn’t thinking straight for a second there.”
“I’m guessing that line worked pretty well before my head got fucked?”
I sigh. “Your head isn’t fucked. And considering we’ve been married for a decade, and I used that threat no less than once a week, I’d say it worked pretty well.”
“Well then, for Old Jackson’s sake, I guess I better let you shave my face.”
I hate the way he refers to himself as Old or New Jackson. It’s as if he’s resigned to never regaining his memory, and now things are divided into two very distinct parts of his story without a single string connecting the two.
Before the accident. After the accident.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe a random day in March became the moment we’ll forever use as a reference point in our lives. Now we’ll define every major event by when it happened in relation to our family’s worst day.
Having ditched my slippers when I crawled into bed, I pad barefoot across the room, stopping to grab the antique wooden chair that’s typically a catchall. A thing to drape clothes over when I don’t feel like putting them away.
“Have you done this before?” The chair wobbles under Jackson’s weight.
“I’ve never had to shave your face, no. But I have plenty of experience shaving much more…delicate areas. I’ll be careful.”
His eyes go wide and his cheeks turn a brilliant shade of red. “On me?”
My guttural laugh echoes through the small space. “Oh my God, no. I’ve never shaved your balls, Jackson. I would, if you really wanted me to, but maybe we should make sure you’re happy with the job I do on your face first.”
“I d-don’t…no,” he stammers, blush spreading to redden his ears and create splotchy red marks down his neck.
I pick up the trimmer and smile at his reflection. “I love this. I haven’t seen you this flustered since we first started dating. Used to be my favorite hobby—making you blush.”
His hand scrubs his cheek. “So you’ve always been a bully.”
Moving to stand directly in front of him, I flick the power switch on the trimmer and it hums to life. Buzzing fills the air. “Bullied the hottest cowboy on the ranch into sleeping with me.”
Jackson’s quick to avert his gaze. So much like the young, shy boy I met when I first moved here, who couldn’t get through a simple interaction with me without turning into a sun-ripe tomato.
And I was much more covert with my attempts to make him blush then—certainly no comments about shaving his balls or convincing him to sleep with me.
I move in closer, until Jackson can’t decide where is safest to look, so after a tiny glance into my eyes, he opts to close his. Two fans of eyelashes, tipped in gold, flutter slightly when I cup his chin to angle his face to the left.
“Can I say…I actually think you look really good with a beard. Not anything that might get you mistaken for a member of ZZ Top, but if you wanted to keep it neatly trimmed instead of clean-shaven, I wouldn’t complain.”
“Are you going to keep trimming it for me?”
“Anytime.” With a soft exhale, like I’m blowing out a candle, I clear the loose hair from his cheek to make sure I didn’t miss a patch.
“You’re the boss. I’ll keep the beard.”
It’s not long before the searing heat in my lower back is distracting.
I stretch. His eyes open to meet mine, and we quietly study each other.
Complexion no longer infused with pink, he’s more pale than usual.
Even his freckles have faded to a dull tawny color.
A lack of long hours in the sun, home-cooked food, and proper sleep will do that, I suppose.
I bow my back in a cat-like stretch, then arch it the other way. “Sorry, this chair is so low, my back feels like it’s going to snap in half.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
I raise a brow at his half-shaven face. “You’re incredibly handsome, but I don’t think you can pull off this look.”
“Okay, well…will it help if I stand up?”
“And risk you getting dizzy? Absolutely not.”
“What if you just…” His knees knock together, and he hesitantly pats his lap.