Chapter xxv
xxv
THAT NIGHT, WHEN DAX WAS IN MY HOTEL BED, I awoke to him gently shaking me.
“Your phone, Lucy,” he said. “Your phone’s been ringing.”
He gave it to me. “It says Violet,” he said. “I think she’s called a number of times.”
My heart started racing. Violet? A number of times? In the middle of the night? I went to swipe the phone call open when it stopped ringing. Before I could call her back, my room phone rang. I grabbed it instantaneously.
“Hello?” I breathed.
“Mom!” Violet was on the other line. “We’re going to the hospital. With Samuel. He cut his foot on a huge shell at the beach, and it was bleeding everywhere. He wants to talk to you.”
She was talking loudly enough that Dax heard and moved closer to me. I grabbed onto him.
“Is he—?” I started, but Violet had already passed her phone to Sammy.
“Mo-om,” he wailed on the other line. “I’m bleeding so much. It really hurts. Mom, what if they can’t fix me? Mom, what if, what if—” And he dissolved into sobs.
“It’s gonna be okay, Sammy,” I said, saying what I hoped was true. “I know it’s really scary, I know it hurts, but it’s just a cut. It’s just a really big cut. And they’re going to fix it right up and stop the bleeding, I promise.”
I could hear his breath slowing a little bit. “Liam says they’re going to stick needles in me and sew me up. Will I … will I have a Frankenstein’s monster foot? Forever?”
I never knew whether Liam was trying to help or trying to mess with Sam, but these kinds of things happened all the time, Liam telling Sam something and freaking him out. Darren was always certain Liam was messing with Sam.
“The way they put medicine in your foot to make it stop hurting is with needles, and you might need stitches, but once the cut heals heal up, your foot will be fine. Just maybe a little scar that will fade with time as your foot grows. Is Daddy there?”
“Yes,” Sam said. “He’s driving.”
I heard Darren’s voice. “He’s going to be fine!” he shouted from the front seat. “I’m not even sure it’ll need stitches! Maybe just glue or something!”
“Okay,” I said. “You heard Daddy. You’re going to be fine. But I’ll stay on the phone with you for as long as you need me.”
Sam was calmer now, and told me the story about what had happened, how it was dinnertime and they’d been eating on the beach and then he was finished, so he was trying to race the waves to shore and wasn’t looking where he was going and then stepped on something really hard. It was a shell and it was stuck in his foot and when he pulled it out the whole sand turned red.
I had the phone on speaker at that point, and Dax whispered to me, “When was his last tetanus shot?”
“Right before kindergarten,” I whispered back.
Dax nodded. “Should still be good,” he said.
“That must’ve been really scary,” I said louder, to Sam.
“It was,” he said, then his voice brightened a little. “I bet Abe will think it’s really cool I saw so much blood and am going to go to a hospital.”
Abe is Sam’s best friend who is really into medical stuff. His parents are both surgeons and fully support his obsession.
“I bet he will,” I said. “Maybe you can call to tell him about it after you get all fixed up.”
“Oh, I will! Maybe I’ll call him now. Bye, Mommy. Love you.”
He clicked off and I shook my head. Then I turned to Dax. “I guess he’s fine,” I said.
“Mommy medicine is pretty powerful,” he replied. “It even works over the phone from five thousand miles away.”
I looked at the clock. “Two thirty,” I said. “I guess we should go back to sleep?”
Dax lay back on the pillows. “It may take me a while to get back to sleep after that. My adrenaline always kicks into gear when I hear a phone go off while I’m sleeping. Probably something my body learned from being on call at the hospital.”
I lay next to him and pulled the blanket up over us both.
He grabbed my hand under the sheets. It felt so nice to have him there, for support, for reassurance. I’d learned to be strong on my own when my kids needed me, but it was nice to lean on someone, too.
“I can tell you’re a great mom,” he said.
I smiled at him in the dim light. “I try.”
He squeezed my hand. “So when do you leave Italy?” he said.
“I fly back to Rome … later today, and then home tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll be home in five weeks. Maybe we can FaceTime or WhatsApp until then?”
I looked over and saw how earnest his face was. How open, how vulnerable.
“I’m … I’m not good at relationships,” I said, a feeling of panic fluttering in my heart. “I’ll mess you up. I’ll mess me up. I’m bad news.”
Dax cocked his head at me. “You’re bad news?”
“I was in two really great relationships in my life, and I fucked them both up royally. I hurt people I love. I hurt myself. I hurt my kids.”
“So … your plan is to be alone forever?” Dax answered.
I was silent.
“Is that what you want?” he asked again softly.
“No,” I said, equally softly. “But it’s what I deserve.” I was afraid of having more, of screwing it up, of losing myself.
He opened his mouth, as if to protest, but then closed it again and moved closer to me, brushing his lips against my temple.
“I’m not banished,” he whispered, “right? That was a warning, but I can proceed at my own risk?”
His hand wandered across my stomach, slid under my T-shirt. I shivered.
“You’re not banished yet,” I breathed, my fear replaced by desire.
He dragged the side of his hand over my clit and I sucked in my breath.
“Good,” he said. “Let’s start with fingers this time.”
Fingers turned to tongues and then into more orgasms.
I lay beside him again, breathing hard. “Ready to go back to sleep now?” I teased.
“I think so,” he said, wrapping his arms back around me.
We nodded off. Until a few hours later, when my phone started to ring, waking us again. This time I grabbed it before Dax did. It was a FaceTime call from Violet. I ran my fingers through my hair, glad I hadn’t decided to sleep in the nude, and answered the call.
Samuel’s smiling face was on the other side. “Mom!” he said. “Mom! Look! They fixed me all up. They did it with disintegrating stitches! And then with cream and a bandage and I’m supposed to try to mostly stay off it for a few days, but then I’ll be okay again! I sent Abe pictures, and he thought it was so cool.”
“I’m so glad, Sammy,” I said, still sleepy but feigning alertness. “And I can’t wait to see you in three days.”
“Me too, Mom. And guess what. Dad says I can have as much screen time as I want tomorrow. That it counts as being sick.”
I laughed. Darren and I had made a rule with the kids that, as long as they follow doctor’s orders, when they’re sick, they get as much screen time as they want.
“Well, make the most of it,” I said. “You can marathon Rocket Through Time .”
He smiled. “Maybe I will.”
Violet popped on the screen. “We’ve gotta get back into the car,” she said to him. “Hi, Mom. It’s super late, but don’t worry, I’ll make sure Sammy goes to bed right when we get home, and I’ll trade beds with him ’cause of his foot.”
I waved and smiled at her. “Hi, Vi. Thanks for going to the hospital with Sammy and Dad and for looking out for Sam tonight—and always.”
She shrugged. “It was getting kind of boring at the house anyway. Love you, Mom.”
She clicked off the phone, and I found myself still smiling at the darkened screen. I don’t know if it was the divorce or if it’s just who she is, but when I’m not around, Violet has always been Sammy’s protector.
Dax opened the bathroom door, dressed in his clothes from the night before. I hadn’t realized he’d gotten out of bed.
“I should probably go home,” he said. “Get some new clothes, burn myself some eggs.”
I laughed, then wondered if I should offer to go out to breakfast with him, or to scramble him some eggs. But before I could say anything, he spoke again.
“Will you be back at the library this afternoon?” he asked.
“I’m afraid not,” I said. “I have to catch my flight to Rome.” I got up from the bed and walked over to him. He looked a little unsure of what to do next, but then we wrapped our arms around each other and held each other close. I rested my cheek against his chest, and he pressed his lips against my forehead.
“Thank you for last night,” I said, half wanting to tell him just how momentous this was for me, how much this night would mean even if we never saw each other again. But I didn’t. I just pulled myself a little closer, held him a little tighter.
“You still didn’t teach me to bake marshmallow pies,” he answered. “Maybe when I get back to New York, I’ll text to see if the offer still stands.”
I pressed my lips gently against his. “Sounds good,” I said.
I was so afraid, Gabe, so afraid of the power that I would have over Dax, that he would have over me, if anything more were to happen between us. That power scared me. It still does.